time to put my guard back up

So I think I had lulled myself into a bit of a false sense of security where this blasted cancer is concerned.  It's a fascinating thing, the way our hearts and minds deal with ongoing trauma in our lives...I've been coasting off the good news/outcome of my Dad's surgery for months now.  And it was easy to do really.  The surgery went better than expected and then all there was to do was wait for him to heal before then next step: chemo and radiation.  So that waiting period felt darn good.  The 16 hour surgery was only 12, the doctors felt they got everything, Dad was up and walking sooner than expected, it really all went so, so well.

But now we are on the cusp of treatment (unfortunately it's been postponed two weeks due to a little unresolved fistula at the trache site) and all that relief and breathing easy is out the window!  I went from zero to high alert in one conversation with the doctor.  Not because anything was really very wrong, just because the post surgery high is gone and the pre treatment low has set in.

A couple of weeks ago I spent a day or two binge reading an amazing blog: Teaching Cancer to Cry.  And having read that I am now even more apprehensive about how hard this is going to be for my Dad...and what if its too much?  What if he wants to stop?  I'm scared.  I know he must be scared.  And the bugger of it is he can't really communicate... No voice box = no talking.  He is trying to get the hang of the artificial larynx, but it tough.  So that's a whole other level of difficulty that I just hadn't prepared myself for... I need those heart conversations that give him the will and strength and motivation to keep going... 

It's just all a work in progress.  I think.  I hope.

So any spare good thoughts you have lying around, prayers, wishes, I will happily, greedily take them all.

Much love.

ps do yourself a favor, go to Teaching Cancer to Cry, find the earliest post and start reading from the beginning.  It should be published.  It is honest, hilarious, brutal, chock full of love and hope and fear...it is the blog of a friend of a friend, his name is Ezra Caldwell.  he started the blog as a way to keep his friends and family in the loop on his cancer...it is his account of his battle with cancer, remission, recurrence, remission, recurrence...it is a blog on bicycles and cooking, hurting and healing, humor and love....it's just amazing!  Go now.

organized chaos

Organized chaos.  That is my studio.  Tom stayed home from work today so that we could have a shared day off...but that quickly turned into him taking my car to the shop and then him working for Metalsgirl most of the day.  Oops.

Anyway, he walked into my studio and said "all I know is I'm not sitting THERE!", pointing an exaggerated finger at my bench.

Yeh, okay, it's a disaster.  I am not the most methodical worker.  I have a very hard time starting one thing and not jumping around to a few other things along the way.  So there are always parts of parts in some degree of completion or incompletion.  And yes, I have a bit of a vintage bowl, or more accurately, vintage butter pat plate obsession.  Hey, they are for work!!  They are excellent for corralling a project that is in some stage of..., well, see my above statement.

So real quick, can I just vent for just a sec?  My car.  I have somehow managed to live in the heart of Texas for four years, maybe more, it's a blur... anyway, at least four years with no air-conditioning in my car.  I don't wanna sound like a brat, but if you have anywhere to be during the day in say May, June, July, August, or September and it's more than a minute away, you just need to get ready to apologize on arrival for being a giant sweat ball!  And it's impossible to take the dogs to vet appointments because they are just looking at me like I should be arrested for cruelty to animals five minutes into the drive.  So, melodramatic me was super excited about a repaired, good-as-new ac!

Uh huh.

Never as simple as that.  Apparently my car is, and I quote, "puking oil all over my wiring and spark plugs".  And I need a new timing belt.  And a new this and a new that...  BLAST!

So, this is where you will find me for the next few weeks:

Firmly planted in front of the afore mentioned messy messy bench, working my tushie off.  The good news about that is: I love my job.  I do.  I absolutely love love love what I get to do for a living.  The only real problem is that there just aren't enough hours in the day to get it all done...I have a jillion different ideas and drawings that I wanna get moving on...for example, check out these great pieces I found last weekend at one of my favorite spots to score vintage bits and bobs to set into rings and things...

Hopefully you'll see these in the shop in the near future...unless of course you wanna stake your claim on one of them right here and right now!  If you just feel free and we can commence to collaboratin'!

Ok, that's enough of a break!  Shawhack! or what ever sound a cracking whip makes! I'm off to saw and file and sand and cut and solder and pumice and pickle and hammer until it's time to pick the teenager up from school!  Gotta go!

coolio!

remember this?

 It became quite large and bountiful...where are my pictures of that?!?!?!

Well it got picked up by Hometalk!  They wrote a lovely little post about starting a garden and unearthed my post about our little pallet garden.  Pretty cool!  By the way, our pallet garden is beginning it's third year.  It is a wonderful, inexpensive way to get started with raised bed gardening.  Give it a whirl!

cancer, cancer, go away...

Cancer has been too much a part of my life over the last couple of years.
First Preacher.
Then Clarence.
Now my Dad.

I was cruising through Instagram the other day.  Social media is an odd thing.  Like really, such an odd thing.  I saw a sweet photo from my friend Megan (she and her husband Greg adopted on of my most dear foster dogs ever, ever, ever and we've just kept in touch, become friends I'd say).  Anyway, she posted a photo with a sweet, sorta sad caption.  This is where social media is just odd.  My curiosity was piqued and I did a little googling around and discovered that her friend, whose home the photo was shot in, has cancer.  He started a blog at the beginning of his journey six years ago.  I started at the beginning and have been completely pulled in.

I'm not sure what it is with me and the sorrow of other people's tragedies lately.  I spent a good part of yesterday and this morning still completely immersed reading the Teaching Cancer to Cry blog.  I would have kept reading, but, on this dreary, rainy day, I have a little work to wrap up before I ready myself for a funeral.  It's kind of hard to read, knowing all along, ahead, how things are turning out...

I put my phone (aka reading device) down and went into the studio to work.  I couldn't even bring myself to turn on the lights.  Instead I tuned my phone to my collection of Jackson Browne and set about packaging orders to the lamp light on my desk.  Now that's done and I need to go get dressed.  But I'm stalling.

We lost a dear, sweet man this past Saturday.  I've known he and his wife my entire life, just life long dear family friends.  I'm not quite sure if I've ever met a kinder, more gentle person...and he and his wife have had the kind of marriage that you dream of having.  The kind where you don't know where one begins and the other one ends...just beautiful.  But now, I just don't know how she will go on with out him.  Last night I was hugging her and she whispered in my ear "Please don't forget about me."  Gutted.

I've gotta go.
Sorry for the kinda grey post.
Keepin' it real.

my sympathies

You know that thing where you hear sad news, sad news that doesn't really affect you, but it's still sad news?  And you are going about your day and you keep wondering why you feel so hazy and then you remember that sad news...?  That's happening to me.

I feel a little silly.  I really truly do not go in for all that celebrity gossip crap.  I don't.  I don't read the magazines, I don't watch the gossip- y shows, it sometimes takes me forever to hear that so-n-so married so-n-so or divorced so-n-so... But somehow, on Monday, I heard the news that Peaches Geldof had died just right away.  I'm guessing that there's a lot of Peaches who? questions right now...  I don't know that much about her truthfully, all I know is that she is the daughter of a man I have admired and adored for most of my life.

As I said, I don't go in for all that celebrity stuff, but when I was 13 years old I discovered Bob Geldof and I have loved his music, admired his politics and humanitarian efforts, and I have been in awe of the high road he has taken in his personal life, his tragic personal life.  A few years ago I had the utter privilege of seeing him perform and I can honestly say it is one of the top 10 experiences of my life...it lived up to everything I could have imagined where he was concerned.

the set list i swiped from the stage after seeing Bob, live, here in Austin a few years ago.

Shoot, I even named one of my foster dogs after this very daughter of his a few years back...

So, as silly as I feel, posting about celebrity gossip, I find I can't help it.  For the last three days I've had a sad cloud over my days...I don't know if I expect to learn something from this sadness or if I expect to enlighten anyone with this post, or if this is just a purely selfish, diaryesque kinda purge on my part...I don't know...

Maybe I just want to extend my sympathies in the only way I can think of...

There are no words, no flowers, not even any prayers that ease this kind of pain.  And I cannot imagine a pain worse than the pain of losing a child.  So expressing sympathies seems a bit, I don't know, futile.  But I want to say I'm sorry.  I want to wish her family peace.  I hope that grief shows them mercy...

Godspeed Peaches Honeyblossom.