My Accident

On February 19th, 2014 at about 7:30 am, the boy and I left for work and school as usual that warm Wednesday morning. Day was already off on the wrong foot, errr at least the last 12 hours had been.


The dog ate my cake that I had just baked, a really good one too. It was the first time that I had bought this mix, didn’t know if golden butter flavored cake sounded all that great. I hoped it would, I do like butter flavor. The dog stole it off the counter while it cooled.

The dog also pulled my bra off the clothes line in the back yard. Wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t chewed it up too, re-washing, while annoying I could have done, she make it a strapless bra. That bra cost me $30 bucks so I wasn’t happy. She knew this.

But I couldn’t stay mad at her, not when she smiles at me. She is after all my girl.



We went to bed. About 4:30 I wake to a crashing sound. My brand new $300 flat screen HD TV got knocked over, and the screen cracked! My sales reps gave me the money for Christmas to buy that thing! I was really mad at my cats. They don’t smile so I stayed mad. Not how I wanted to start my morning.

We went along with our morning, making lunches, getting dressed, feeding the critters, only this morning I was shooting dirty looks at the cats and muttering mean things at the cats at regular intervals.

Finally we leave for work; we head out to the car, put our stuff in the car, get in the car, and start her up. Put her in reverse. She won’t move, I rev her, she VROOMMMMS real nice and loud for me, still doesn’t move. I mutter DAMN what is up with my car!, I get out of my car. She suddenly lurches backwards, my open car door plows me down, drags me a bit before completely passing over me. She keeps going, until she hits the brick wall across the street.

I get up swearing, that hurt, a number of colorful metaphors spew from my mouth over the next few minutes, I am still operating adrenal fueled. I look at my car, I am standing in the middle of the street still, I look to wear my car was. My first thought, seeing my shoes laying in my parking spot are “oh it knocked my shoes off.” Go ahead laugh, I did, I thought it was funny seeing my shoes there. I collect my shoes and go and move my car back into place. At this time my neighbor comes running out, “are you ok?”, “no” I respond, she’s ready to call 911. By this time my son has run and told my Mom I was in an accident. By now I am starting to realize my left arm isn’t working. I am also starting to notice I am in a great deal of pain.

I call my boss, “I know I am going to get an occurrence, but I am not coming in today, I was just in a car accident, I am going to the ER” My mom takes me to the ER, very brief wait, but by this time I am crying as the pain has fully set in. I try to stay chipper, not totally working.

At the ER they take 5-6 X-Rays oh my shoulder, my knee stars to hurt so my DR orders X-rays of my knee, another 3 or 4 shots, I ask the tech, “with all these X-Rays am I going to glow in the dark now?”, I smile, they laugh “no, you won’t” trying to lighten my mood and not be a cranky patient. It is taking all my energy to do this. I see the pictures from across the room, I mutter, “ I am not a DR but that looks broken to me. I know you can’t tell me the DR has to look at it first” back in my room we don’t wait long, DR comes in, tells me it is broken, big time (me words not hers) gives me 2 Percocet and a valium. 30 minutes later, a new sling, and orders to see my DR ASAP I am released.

I start notifying the masses of my accident. My best friend asks what he can do; I ask if he will replace the tail light on my car. He agrees, picks the car up later that evening. He mentions it is more than just the light, the light is all I need to make road legal again, the bumper, and the dents are just cosmetic.

My ex husband has been great through all this. His first concern is our son of course, mine would be too. He offers to call my insurance company for me, give the details, get claim number work with the owner of the wall. He works for an insurance company so they deal with him. Give him a case number. The landlord to my apartment gets him or my Dad in tough with the brick walls owner. They are agreeable, most of the bricks are salvageable, what isn’t I will need to pay for, sounds fair to me. My insurance will cover the property damage if I choose to submit the claim; I am waiting on the bill so I can decide if I will pay out of pocket or use my insurance.

Here are the shots of the damage

A normal collar bone, not mine.



My collar bone, it is in 3 pieces



The car



The Car Again, scratched my Anti-Obama sticker 



And more alright this actually an after shot but it is the only one of the side damage I have



The wall



My ex took the boy Wednesday night so he could go to school Thursday/Friday, in hindsight I could have used him at home I needed a lot of help, I couldn’t do anything for myself. But he needed to go to school; my mom, dad and Ozzy took good care of me when wass away. The boy came home from school each night and did some chores. Ozzy brushed and tied my hair up each day and let me play with their puppies and say hi to Yankee, the pups are Sydney’s new baby brothers and sisters

I saw my DR on Thursday; he was surprised that I was seeing him before an orthopedic after looking at my X-Ray then playing show and tell with the other DR in the office. He makes some calls gets me an early appointment the next day to see a ortho. The ortho takes 5 minutes with my pictures, and has me scheduled for surgery for Thursday February 28th at 8:30 am. I am allowed to go to work until then. Great I was actually bored at home.

My Mom took me shopping Saturday, to find clothes that would be easier for me to get in and out of, so far my Mom and Ozzy have been dressing and undressing me. The also do my hair for me. We go to Goodwill first, we find an ugly pair of pants and a periwinkle skirt. mothing in the line of button up shirts, hmmmmm.... we try Ross. score, we visited 2 Ross stores, I find 5 cotton t-shirt material dresses, 2 tunics for later after I loose more weight, and 2 dress cover jackets., a light weight heather gray sweater and a black t-shirt material, cape like dress jacket. They cover my arms which is important for work, no bare arms allowed. We go to Target and I get sleep aids, 2 pillows, a body pillow pillow case, an ottoman. I can't lay down so i need things to hep prop me up. I also get a couple of easter peeps, they are my favorites and i will ony eat them at easter, so the are more special even though I know they come out for Valentine's, Christmas and Halloween now too. I look forward to them all year long.

Monday, was hard, but I made it through the day at work, Tuesday was harder, I didn’t have good support for my arm at work so it took its toll. Spoke to the surgery center and the ortho billing department Tuesday; I am supposed to pay upfront $500 to the surgery center. They didn’t threaten the cancel my surgery like the ortho DR did if I didn’t pay $887 before the surgery. I have, just no way of getting it to the office; I am not allowed to drive, I don’t have a checking account or debit card/credit card, they won’t budge, won’t even let my mom bring it over in the morning while I am in surgery. Really? So I start to cry, I am stressing, hurting and I want to start healing now. My girlfriend sees me crying, through the tears she eventually gets the story out of me. She says she will go and take it for me; she takes me at lunch to get the cash, and true to her word, at 4:20 sends me a picture of the receipt she gets from the office, now I am ready for surgery. Oye, good thing I got my tax refund on Thursday or I would have not had the cash for surgery or my dresses ans sleep aids, or any of my prescriptions. I need to build a savings up more. Going to make that a bigger priority now for sure. I think I also need a checking account I could use it have for this sort of thing.Just transfer what I need over and pay online. Save me some trouble from people that won't work with me like my ortho DR. I understand they want to be sure they get paid but their policy is really stupid.



Wednesday I barely made it to 10:30 before I was in tears working, my shoulder hurt so bad, my girl friend took me home, only after I knew she wouldn’t be in trouble if she didn’t make it back in 30 minutes, she offered when she knew how bad I was, but I didn't want her being late getting back to the office. My boss was out so my girl friend’s boss sent me home. Wednesday was a hard day.

Got up good early Thursday morning, but I always do that. Check in, pay my $500, they start the pre-op, I cooperate with everything except the pregnancy test, I know 100% without a doubt I am not pregnant, so I don’t want to pay for the test. I haven’t had what would cause a pregnancy in 4 years and my name isn’t Mary so there won’t be any immaculate conception either. They don’t argue with me. Yeah one less expense I will see on my bills, a major minor victory, but I am happy about it. Besides, I really didn’t need to go either.

They keep prepping me, I try to stay perky, I am scared, and this is my very first surgery ever. I hope my last. They weigh me, and take my history again, get me into my gown; I actually repeated my history 3 times that morning. Fine as long as everyone knows what is going on. I meet my nurse advocate, the lady who will be watching out for me in the ER with all the “boys” They give me a pen to draw on my shoulder, mark it with a yes like they tell me. The Dr also signs his name on my shoulder, he did it a little roughly that it hurt I bit my tongue when he did. They put my blue party hat on over my hair, I requested the Tweety Bird, (one of the nurses had a cap with Tweety Bird on it) and they only have the gauze blue ones.  They put cuffs on my legs; compression cuffs that help prevent clots. They try to start the IV, my veins won’t cooperate. I start to cry it hurts I cry out. They stop, said they will do it when I am under in the operating room. They cover me with blanket and get ready to wheel me, just before going through the doors, they give me a heated blanket, I clutch it and pull it to my chest, I was a little chilly.

I notice the sign on the door to the OR, has a Latex warning, they are making sure I don’t have a bad reaction to latex, excellent, that is a relief but they would know what to do anyways, but the signs make sure everyone knows.

In the OR I am suppose to scoot from my gurney to the table, I have only 1 working arm, and they want me to go left, I can’t do it, I ask them to let me stand, and step up on to the table. They get me a stool and I move easily from one table to the other. Good idea they said. Now the hard part, they want me to lie down. This causes pressure on my shoulder! I immediately start to cry again, they put the mask on my nose and tell me to breathe deep. The next thing I remember, I am waking up, groggy, they keep forcing me to sip apple juice, I still haven’t opened my eyes, I feel funny, puffy, my shoulder, I am not sure it is still there anymore. I touch it, oh there it is. I feel like they are hustling me to wake up, get dress time to go home. Maybe they are their job is done now my body has to do its thing and heal.

Now 3 days post op, I am feeling pretty good. This morning I felt real good, best in over a week. I aggravated the boy; I made him help me clean this morning. Vacuum the living room, clean up my junk collection shelf, and the boy mopped the kitchen floor.

I then sent the boy to Wendy’s to get us some food and Circle K to get my Sunday paper, after lunch I took off the bandage, oh that is what I have been waiting for since my surgery, I get to take ashower, oh the warm water felt so good, I finally got all the orange scrubbed off of me it felt so good, I felt so fresh again, getting that puffy bulky bandage off my shoulder felt great too. I got to see the incision for the first time. It looks like the DR put a zipper in my shoulder.

The zipper



My best friend returned my car to me, looks great, fixed the light and the bumper too. It looks great. He did a great job, and he tells me not to worry about it when I ask him how much the car damages cost.



New bumper



The wall still waits its repair





Oh and I even stitched a little today, slower than normal, but I got a few stitches in before I fell asleep for afternoon nap. I have been doing that a lot lately.

I am staying home Monday and Tuesday, going to see how Wednesday goes, I got a pillow pet to support my arm if he works out then I will be able to work, if not I will file for temp disability. I hope I can go back to work, with this guys help.





My Yorkie Neo has been keeping watch over me, doesn’t he look so abused snuggling in my pillows? He does need a bath though.

Other Cross Stitch and Craft Finishes

Sock monkey




you may remember the sock monkey I made, I found this kit .99 at Wal-Mart and decided to make it as well, it matches my guy the last detail, slippers, the teddy, even the hat, took a couple our hours to do start to finish. saving it for my Christmas tree



VW Bus











This was a chart from cross stitch gold, I didn't know what to stitch my best friend for Christmas, well what to make this year. I always make him a gift. Its tradition. it is getting harder and harder to come up with something

each year



any ways this chart fell into my lap last minute and fit perfectly on an Altoid tin, so his gift was born



i left the people out of the design everything else is the same



he loved it, he likes that I reused an Altoid tin, loves the felt i found to line the inside and says the bus on tin is providing inspiration for his real bus new paint job. Even if his is the 84 Vanagon and not a 60s loaf style bus



i used a piece of yellow and orange ribbon to make trim on the can, don't think you can see it in the pictures.

Pumpkin Doodle



This maybe a repeat, this is pumpkin doodle along with apple doodle I want to turn these into throw pillows for my fall decorating.



Not a Creature was Stirring

I made this one for my Christmas ornament exchange. He went to live in Australia. He was fun to stitch.

28 ct white Monaco

DMC thread

black beads

I made the coding myself with a new toy I got



he's a lot off center



JCS ornament issue





Mr. Pumpkin Patch



This was for Hallofall I thought he was cute

he was fun to stitch.

The pattern was from one of the Halloween issues of JCS

JABCO buttons, DMC thread and 28 ct Monaco

Mickey and Minnie ornaments

I made these for my friend’s 3 kids for Christmas, I used felt to my the heads and pink bow. I used puff paint to do the lines on the bow. These were fun little stitch ups. My girl friend said the kids loved them. I am just learn how to hand stitch, this is only my second project I have done.



Jingle Bell Mouse



There are two of these adorable mice, I have only this one, I can never remember which one it is. It comes as a partial kit; the embellishments are in the kit you need to get the fabric the DMC your self

Red Bird



Forgive me if I have already posted these, i am drugged, and have a broken collar bone so typing spelling may be off in my posts



this is red bird from one of the jcs ornament issues, made it for Sue.

28 ct taupe monaco

jabco buttons, a red ribbon from my stash

red memory thread

the thread is Gast i believe

UPDATE ON HAED Owl and the Pussycat

After almost a year I picked this up again for a few weeks of stitching, but got tired of all the blue. I worked it for 2 months. I set it aside again to work on frog pile for a little while I have 2 full pages done now


November work




Dec work





Taking a break from Owl and the Pussycat, got tire of blue. I picked up Frog Pile again.

Start of the Year of the owl

Ok offically it isn't really the year of the owl, but for me it is. My plan was to work on nothing but owls in 2014 until then some, until all my owls are stitched.

This is going to be a photo heavy post. Trying to post all I have done since my internet went down in early November. Forgive me if I have already posted these, I am drugged, and have a broken collar bone so typing spelling may be off in my posts and I can’t look things up well.


Travel the world in cross stitch - I have the book of this one - came out of the Canada section of the book

28ct white with DMC threads



Wendy’s Owl



I always thought this owl looked like he is wearing a space suit. Isn’t he cute?



This is Wendy's owl

by Ships Manor

used DMC threads

I think 28 ct white fabric



this is one of many i want to do this year in my year of stitching owls



GM Silhouette



I think this is the last of the owls from when my internet was down. This is a freebie I found on line, it was on a foreign site, only thing i that wasn't written in another language French I think was the numbers.



So I just call him GM Silhouette owl there was a g & m on the page.



I used a hand dyed fabric, that i dyed myself, fabric is 2 toned a coral and a pink. i used a brown black 3371 DMC thread.

Bent Creek’s Quaker Moon





I had to make changes to this one since it was a Halloween pattern. I took out the faces on the pumpkin and the word spooky. I can't remember what charm it called for a purple button? But I used a glitter star button on it.



Summer Khaki 28 ct fabric, might be 32 ct and DMC thread



Advent Tree of Owls Christmas



This is an old retired SAL that I collected a while ago but never stitched. you got the tree in November and each owl one a day from Dec 1st until Christmas, oh this is an advent tree, just remembered that



I had so much fun stitching these little guys. Day 12 you had to design yourself, I used a body from 24 and colors from one of the blue owls to make my guy



This SAL didn't use many colors, but i think it turned out nice.



28ct Charles craft white Monaco

DMC threads



Halloween Owl



This was part of a leaflet, it has a black cat, a pumpkin and a house pattern along with this adorable little owl pattern. I want to say this is Bent Creek Halloween.



Owliver Owl Tote



This pattern came from JCS Feb 2014 issue I. There is a bookmark too, but I have only done the tote bag so far.



This picture isn't great my camera is dying



I used a mint green linen for this one. The thread is DMC I love the colors in this one, wish they came out better then in this picture.



Owl on a package



I have no info on this owl, I made lots of charges to this one, I had a hand drawn chart and no key. I don't know who drew him, it was in a pile of stash I received from my church, ladies donate old craft supplies sometimes and inherited the cross stitch stuff



I stitched him on 14ct perforated plastic

January Sal 2011 Owl Oak Haven





This is one of 12 owls from Oak Havens 2011 SAL. There is an owl for each month; I intend to stitch them all this year. Once my shoulder heals that is. I want to stitch so bad right now it is driving me crazy.



the fabric is a soft blue 28 ct even weave

threads are DMC

I think I am going to make this into a flat fold.

Barn Owl in Flight



Little freebie from the web I collected ages ago



light purple 28 ct fabric, it was a left over scrap of fabric

Beginner’s Owl





Where i got this pattern I don't recall, I know it is Gloria and Pat’s. I have a print out of it, I think it was off their web site? it is a instruction piece to basic cross stitch but he was too adorable an owl for this seasoned stitcher not to add to her year of owls project



28ct white Charles craft Monaco and DMC threads

Burrowing Owl



JCS magazine I believe, I ripped the chart out of some magazine ages ago. I have had the pattern about 2 years now.



Stitched on 28 ct fabric using DMC threads

Wizard’s View Snowy Owl



I have no idea where i got the pattern I think it came from enchanting cross stitch. I forgot to write it down. I can't dig it up right now with my broken collar bone.



my camera is dying the colors look much better than this.



28ct millennium blue linen

DMC threads

I omitted the beads from this pattern



Hedwig



This was pinned on pinterest, title Hedwig from Harry Potter. Just another cute little owl chart I thought.



I used a blue denim color scrap fabric 28 ct and DMC

Oakley Owl







I remember working this piece while watch Ghostbusters 1 & 2 one weekend afternoon.



This was a kit came with all the embellishments, I add to supply the thread and fabric



Thought this little owl was adorable, perfect for my fall decorations



Learn to Sew Owl





Just a cute kit I found a Wal-Mart.



DMC’s Woodland Friends Ollie

Ok this actually the last one. This is DMC’s Woodland Friends Ollie, 1 of 2 patterns I have of Ollie, the only one I have stitched so far. He actually was not as easy as i thought he would be, lots of 3/4 stitches.



This is the newest pattern for Ollie I believe you can find him online still

Bootiful Pet costumes

Today was the Bootiful pet costume contest at Petco. It was not a huge turnout. There was 6 dogs and 4 turtles. My turtles. The went out as a Garden Party.


Michelangelo “Mikey” was a Bumble Bee.

Samantha “Sammie or Sam” as a Butterfly & Tucker (the only Tortoise in the group) went as a Lady Bug



Tokka the smallest of the small was the Flower.





I was only able to get pictures of a couple of the dogs. The first and second place winners.

First place was Buddy the Dirt Devil. He had wardrobe malfunction, his horns wouldn’t stay on.



And I can’t remember the name of this dog, but he was a little cutie. He was the Frog, and his Mom came dressed as the Princess. He was such a good boy willing to stay put in the basket as long as him Mom asked him too.



Tokka and Sammie made a new friend.



The turtles were a hit of the pet costume contest. I don’t know how many times someone asked to take their pictures. They certainly had their Paparazzi moment today.

Tucker was happy enough to wander around the store. He stopped a few times to check out peoples’ feet or a dark spot on the floor, checking to see if it was edible.





At the end of the contest, we packed up the turtles but let Mikey stay out for a little longer and stroll down the side walk outside of Petco. She was enjoying the heat from the sun, and drawing a lot of attention. People were stopping their cars to look at the Bumble Bee strolling along on the sidewalk.





While those guys didn’t go to Petco for the contest, they did get to try on their own fashions.

Toothless has dragon wings made for him.

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She was a little, ok a lot unhappy with me putting the wings on her that I decided that she could stay home. I didn’t want her freaking out on me and trying to take a plunge off my shoulder to the hard floor below. I am sure she didn’t mind at all.



My dogs and one kitty got to try on fairy wings. I bought them for Sydney, if I decided to take her to a contest any time in the future. Everyone got a chance to be pretty and sparkly for a few minutes and get their pictures taken. Of every one the cat tolerated it the best.

Peaches



Neo



Sydney (now 8 months old)



Nani







I made the turtles costumes using felt, the red and the pink was sparkly felt, Sparkly sticky foam (the bee’s wings) pipe cleaners and pom-poms. Tokka flower was a pin I found the bargain bins at Michael’s I just took the pin off the back and glued on a belt. Next year when I make the costumes, Sammie will either have an elastic belt, as her belt made it had for her to walk, he nails kept getting stick in the belt or I will get her a stiffer belt like the one I put on Mikey. My Mom sewed the veins in Toothless wing’s and the butterfly and the dragon wings had pipe cleaners inside of them so that they could be posed. I used Velcro to secure the belt to the animals. It was safe and secure and could provide a quick release if I had to get them out of their costumes suddenly for whatever reason.

I would have gotten more pictures of the contest if I had been able too, my hands where full holding on to Tokka and following Sammie and Tucker. My son followed Mikey around as she was the most active of the bunch.

Everyone who attended the costume contest received a goodie bag. The turtles got a can of canned mangos, a reptile treat. I am sure they will love it. They also got a tennis ball, and even though I didn’t bring the dogs, they got a treat bag as well. A bag of peanut butter dog bones a few loose cookies from the dog treat bar and a tennis ball too.

The turtles each got a certificate of participation with their names on it.