And flew by again, LOL!

Well, four more months flew by, LOL!

Much is same ole' same ole', but some is new - Much to my mother's horror if she knew, I was baptized at First Apostolic Church in North Vernon on May 19th!  Of course, I'd been going with Mr. Calico and Marci for many months, probably since last fall.  Reading the Bible and studying about what I'd been taught growing up in the Catholic church, and what I was now hearing and learning at FAC.  That night, the Spirit moved me to step out and take this next step.  The cool thing was, it just so happened that our Pastor was out of town for the Sunday night service - so I got to be baptized by Brother Rod Raines who was preaching that night instead.  He and his wife Angela were the ones to come meet with me when I first had questions and wanted to talk with someone.  How neat that it came full circle like that!  God works in mysterious ways, and often has plans better than ours!

Marci had her tryouts for High School cheer, but didn't make the squad.  She was pretty crushed.  Only one girl from Northside made it (and even Marci agrees, she is pretty darn spectacular!) all the rest were from Central.  She has bounced back, but every now and then I feel sad for her because I know how much she loves the sport.  She and Ellen will pick up their class schedules and books next week, school starts the Monday after that, August 5th to be exact.

Ellen caught something yucky.  She had a horrible fever last Wednesday night - like 103 - 104!  We went to the Dr. the next day and it was 102.6 - and I told them, she is much, much better than last night!  Tested for strep and negative.  She didn't want to give blood for a mono test, so he sent her home and said "if it's a virus, you'll feel some better by Monday, if you don't feel better, then we need to do a mono test, so come back."  Well, we went back, but the mono spot test was negative.  So now it's Thursday - a week and a day since she was knocked down by this, she still has a headache (I'd have killed myself by now having a headache for 9 days!!) sore throat, and fatigue.  She says it's better than the first day, but she's not "better."  Also, one of the little ones she watches on Sundays in the nursery has come down with what sounds like the exact same thing - though he had a seizure from the high fever the first night :(  So we are having her rest and push fluids, hoping she gets better.

Max, oh dear sweet Max.  All I can do is shake my head some days!  We got a call from the Insurance office July 2nd.  Seems they had a fellow in there saying Max's truck had hit his in a parking lot.  So I questioned Max, and it turns out he'd parked at McDonald's after work one night and must not have had the truck in gear and it rolled back across the lot and hit this guys car, smashing its' bumper.  I asked insurance when this had happened ------ she says "June 2nd"  WHAT!  A MONTH AGO????     MMMMAAAAAAXXXXXXXXX!  So we had a talk about "if your car touches someone else's car without permission then you need to come home and tell mommy and daddy right away, ok???"  The only good thing was, Tim had noticed some red on the bumper of the truck a couple weeks earlier and was going nuts trying to figure out what it was or where it came from.  So I asked Max, "Was this other car by any chance red?"  "Yeah, how'd you know?"  Mystery solved!  Max said the guy said he would look for a bumper in a junk yard, but some how Max didn't piece together the part of that where he or his insurance would still have to PAY for said bumper!  It was a $981 repair, and that's without the likely 3 days of rental car in there yet.  *sigh*  It's always something new with that kid, LOL!  We took away his computer and told him when his room was clean (spotless really!) he could have it back.  He made a great dent, but hasn't finished it quite yet, and found where I'd stashed his computer and took it back, so I'll be repossessing it and bringing it here to work to keep his grubby mitts off it until his room passes inspection!

Speaking of insurance . . . . . Mr. Calico and I were at the insurance office to talk about Life policies and changing ours to a "return of premium" policy.  Rates will go up versus what we have, but we'll have better options at the end of the term.  Well, I will anyway.  Turns out he's been chewing tobacco (I just found out on Sunday on the way home from church that it wasn't Mint snuff anymore) and so that means for him to change policies would cost $1,900 instead of $800 a year as a non-tobacco user!  I was ticked to be sure.  The only thing we can do is have him quit and then start the new policy in a year when the tobacco is out of his system - but the policies are going up by 40% next year, so we'll still take a hit.  I could just kill him!  And right now so I could collect on the policy we have in place, yeah, the one he'll be keeping for a year at least!  Most of the companies wouldn't even allow him a policy as a man over 45 and tobacco user.  Amazing how little choices make big impact when we least expect it.  I've gotten my irritation out mostly, and didn't even fuss anymore once we left the office (though I have enjoyed telling the story to a few friends!)  The bright spot is that I discovered that I will be rated as "Preferred" which is a lower premium, and heck, if I can lose 5 pounds in a week (the nurse comes to swab my mouth, and weigh and all that) then I can be "Preferred Plus" - so that's cool!

As to quilting  .. . . . .ugh.  I haven't had anything on the frame in almost a month.  There was a HUGE push to finish the two commissioned Tshirt quilts for high school grads in time for graduation.  And I made it.  Then there was a simple Chinese coin quilt for a guild member dying of cancer, and that got done.  But after that . . . .zip.  I will say, it's been HOT the last week or two, and it's hard to get quilting when it's too hot, plus in the summer I get little bugs flying around the light on the longarm and on the top as I'm quilting.  It only takes quilting over a couple to determine that you have to quit when the tiny bugs come out in the evening - so that shortens my opportunity to work.  But really, I just need to quit procrastinating and get with it.  My previous post I was doing so much better at getting things done and not giving in to the depression - but "overwhelmed" is the word of the last 6 to 8 weeks.  Everything just seems like too much to face: the laundry, the dishes, quilting, heck just getting up.  I did have a couple of good days this week, and am hopeful that I'm on an upswing.  Whatever the case, I have a deadline for 2 quilts coming in a week and a half, so they'll have to get done whether I like it or not.  And hopefully that will get my mojo flowing and I can climb back on top of the world!

Oh, and in chicken world, good news, good news, and bad news.  We had Miss Abigail hatch out 6 babies over July 3 and 4 - 4 black and 2 white.  She sat on them in the basement window sill just below the kitchen window and behind all the viney brush there.  I was worried that the eggs or babies would fall off the window sill!  And some of the eggs did, but still she kept a small clutch and hatched 6.  Then 3 days ago Dannibelle and Bitsybelle wandered off.  I found Dannibelle a day later, but no Bitsybelle yet.  She's a scardy cat and I figure the bigger girls ran her off.  All the polish had been staying caged but we'd let them out since there weren't any shows coming up and it was so hot.  I wanted them to be in the run where there's shade and overgrowth.  Unfortunately, the door to the run was open one morning and I didn't know, so when I put them in there from the coop, they wandered out into the yard.  I'm still praying that Bitsybelle will come back or that God will lead me to find her and bring her home.  Lucybelle and Leopold are still in the basement, it's cooler, but I worry about the dampness.  She was already having a hard time with the heat in early May when the temps began to hit the high 70's.  Just like Ellen, the heatstroke she had last year will have lingering effects and I'll have to baby her in the summer.