April 28, 2025 Monday--5am

Greetings!

Was another week much like the last.  Still dealing with the bathroom issues, but other than that feeling better on the whole.  I went from a nearly empty frig to one that is currently packed.  Dagan dropped off food twice--leftovers from Easter dinner that were delicious and I still have some left.  Leah dropped off a grocery order, too.  

When Dagan and the boys dropped off Easter dinner on Monday they stayed for a while.  Liam wanted to color some more on the mandala he's been working on with my Tombow markers.  I have to look for something to put underneath the page to protect the table.  He didn't have time to add a lot but he is having fun.

I was talking about how my kitchen table will be an art table in the middle of the studio at the new place and the kinds of things we can do once I get unpacked...like blow ink or paint around with canned air.  Dagan said we'd really need to put something on the table then!  That got me thinking about a tablecloth...so I went on an Amazon search for a colorful cheap tablecloth.  ;)

Allie staring at the door after they left.

Allie keeping me company as I searched online.

I found a fun tablecloth and it is already here!

I think this will look great in the new studio with two orange walls--lol!

Been warm.  Had a little rain on Sunday.  Supposed to be 98% chance today.  Good!  We need some rain.

Liam had a musical presentation at school last week.

Here Ian and Liam were before the event.  I think it was a western theme.  Liam had to borrow a plaid shirt, I believe.  LOL!

Was a typical school presentation and Leah took some pictures.

Ian got to pick up his pottery from his first class!  Not too bad.

I can hardly wait to see the fired results from his second class and Leah's class, too.

I wasn't up to watching much news.  Went for great escape fare.  Stargate SG-1!  I had seen a few seasons long, long ago on Netflix but never finished watching it because Netflix suddenly quit carrying it.  I found it on Prime and am having fun watching it.  Always kind of reminded me of Star Trek's original series, but with better special effects. ;)  I started over from the beginning.  Been so long I don't remember what the different episodes are about for a while, but am enjoying them even after I remember.  This was back when there were about 20 episodes per season...so, I have 10 seasons and 213 episodes to watch altogether.  Talk about fun, low-stress, escape TV.  Just what I needed.

Anyways, I hope it's been a good week for you all.  Allie and I are loving being able to have the patio door open part of the day.  Really does feel like an early spring this year.  I am so happy you have stopped by for a little visit.  Best to you.  *hugs from Fargo*

April 21, 2025 Monday--5am

Good morning!

Was a quiet week again.  I didn't make it in for the follow-up urine sample on Tuesday, either.  Was just after effects from antibiotics.  But I was feeling lots better as far as the UTI went so I just messaged her and explained that I didn't think I needed the follow-up, this would pass, and I was feeling lots better.  She agreed.  (I do so love a doctor who listens to you.)

Keanna came to clean.  I did laundry twice...got things like the bath towels and throws.  Did a little cooking.  Everything in slow motion...baby steps.  But that's okay.  Finally catching up on letters from the last couple of weeks.  Got half of them done (7) and they're already in the outgoing mail slot.

Been warmer still.  In the 60s even.  But so dang windy that it felt cooler and I couldn't open the patio door all the way.  Was nice to have it open some, though.

Allie enjoyed her spa bed off and on.

I changed the shower curtain again.

The grackles have taken over the patio outside.

Putting that other bed where Allie sits to watch the door...like she does after Dagan drops off a few groceries...or if she hears people in the hallway and thinks they might be coming here...well, it's just too comfy and she falls asleep--lol!

Leah dropped off a chocolate rabbit quite a while ago and I saved it for Easter Sunday.  Nibbled on it (ears first, of course) all day Sunday until it was gone--lol!

Speaking of Easter...the boys love their easter egg coloring tradition.

I think they have it down...

...and even though they color all the eggs themselves...

...they still enjoy the fact that Mama and Daddy hide the eggs all over the place.  This brown-winter year they could actually hide them outside.

Speaking of tradition...I noticed they even put on the bunny ears for the final photo--lol!

Ian had another pottery class!

He's really been enjoying making pottery.

Don't ask me what that one is.  A rose?  Art?  I'm sure Ian will tell me.

And don't ask me what this Minecraft Coding Class was about they went to, either.  I think that is truly waaaay beyond Gramma's technological capabilities.  They really enjoyed it, though.

Leah and her sister, Michal, also went to a pottery class on a different night.  These are Leah's creations.

I am sooo glad she got to go!  Years ago she took classes and made so many things I have been using in the studio for years.  I could tell she had some experience.  These look great!

Since they all had a long weekend...Dagan and Leah worked on setting up my wardrobes with poles and shelves.  I took measurements and we came up with one for hanging long clothes...

...and one for shorter clothes.  The small shelves on the right sides were just placed in there randomly and can be moved around.  The center one might be permanent, though.  Anyways, will find out as they are used if this configuration will work well.

They also got the automatic blinds installed in the windows!  And it looks like she cleaned out the weeds from the window well, too.

While they were working down there the door was open and Blink had her chance to get into the apartment.  Dagan picked her up and put her in the top drawer.  She can't jump to the top of the 12-drawer dresser...looks kind of amazed.

She checked it out, though.

I had to show you.  Miss Blink obviously does not have an aversion to cuddly throws like Miss Allie!  LOL!

Being sick is draining.  One night I slept from about 1-9am and was still so tired I was asleep again from 11am-3pm!  I figured I needed it with how little sleep I got with the UTI--lol!  

Anyways, was a good week.  Definitely feeling better.  Things are getting back to my low-gear normal--lol!  Letters are already out waiting for the mailman tomorrow.  Plan to do some more paper-chatting today, too.  You guys are the best!  Have a superb week.  See you next Monday!  :)

April 14, 2025 Monday--5am

Good morning!

Well, I am feeling quite a bit better than I was but am not all better.  I didn't make it to the lab for the follow-up urine sample on Friday.  Dagan can bring me over his lunch hour on Tuesday so we're trying for that this week.  Been a quiet week.  Warmer!  Even have been in the low 60s a few days.  No snow left.

Leah was planning to drive down to IKEA in Minneapolis on Sunday to return the hutch that won't go together because the parts were made wrong and the 2-drawer dresser that was ordered by accident.  (That's what we discovered the extra drawers were.)  She and Dagan were moving the rug around in the living room.  I had hoped it would pretty much cover the entire floor and not have to have any furniture on top of it on those three sides.  It works perfectly!!

I am so happy with the colorful abstract rug!

And even if we move the hutches with the glass doors down a ways from the front door...

...they still won't have to be up on the rug!  

I have no idea how Leah made the green arrow to show me that--lol!

The bad news.  On Sunday texts were flying back and forth between Leah and Dagan and me.  IKEA would not take back either of the items.  Not the hutch they still carry or the 2-drawer dresser/nightstand/endtable or whatever you want to use it as.  Been too long they said.  Even though they still carry the hutch and it is manufactured incorrectly.  So disappointing.

I told Leah I hoped she could fit the 2-drawer unit into the car so we could put it together and sell it at least.  The hutch was useless as even grooves made in the wood were not in the right place so impossible to put it together.  She planned to leave that with them to deal with as she could never fit it in the car anyways.

Later she sent pictures!  

TaDa!!  She got the new hutch, the four dressers, and the 2-drawer unit in...plus some other things in that basket!  She is an expert at Tetris packing!

So--the endless delays have been costly in many ways.  This was just another one of them.  But we have the last IKEA pieces.  I am so glad Leah went right away this last weekend.  I was afraid it might be weeks in order to make that long trip there and back in one day, you know?  Hurray!

Oh, and here is what the dressers look like.  (Picture from IKEA.)  They have a frosted glass front on the top drawer.

I really like how they will break up that wall of drawers!  Silver lining to the latest delay!!  I like them better!  :)

This coming week--hope to make it to the lab on Tuesday and Keanna comes to clean that afternoon.  No other plans but to continue to rest and feel better and better.

Some have wondered why I need so much storage.  Well, if you can remember being in isolation during covid...imagine being housebound and living alone with your cat...while feeling like you have the flu 24/7...for over 2 decades.  That is why I have added to all those supplies for doing solitary things when I am able...that bring me joy...and keep me sane.  Books (until I got macular puckers in both eyes so it is harder to read), art supplies, card making supplies, craft supplies, letter writing and journaling supplies...without them...goodness!  Being alone and rarely ever leaving the apartment or having company for 20 years...maybe you'd surround yourself with activities to lift your spirits, too.

My health has been considerably worse ever since cancer (and the year before I was diagnosed), so I haven't been able to play as much as I would like to with the art, craft, and card making goodies...but I am hoping to feel better and better over time.  I have been...just much much slower than I would like...but there has been gradual improvement.  Truth--Keytruda may have cured me, but it also almost killed me--lol!  I am still suffering from side effects, but there has been slow progress.  Since I already had an autoimmune disease (bad fibro) in the first place before cancer...well, that kind of multiplies all the immune system issues.  

Some of the new people may have wondered, too, why I have so many supplies and do so little with them.  That is why.  It is not for the lack of wanting.  I just started retraining my body to be able to sit up at a table again last year.  Started making my own food again, too.  I still can't stand or walk for very long...but I am doing a lot better when I look back to a year ago.  Just frustrating that I have to look back that far to see progress--lol!  But that's life sometimes.  I am just glad I am still here--alive and kicking!  Well, more alive and shuffling, but you know what I mean.

Anyways, I thought I would try to explain that a little bit.  I've been writing letters and journaling since I was nine.  I've been making cards since the 80s, I believe.  Been sometimes decorating paper I wrote letters on since I was nine.  As unhealthy as I have been the past several years here, the things I have persisted with have been writing letters and journaling (even when it was just barely with breaks) and making yearly Christmas and birthday cards (Leah helped me).  Moving is going to be really physically hard...but after I gradually get my home in order around me again and recover from the move and the unpacking...my newly arranged studio will be enticing me to come and play.  I really, really, really hope to be able to do that more often than I have been...eventually.  I am patient.  I am hopeful.  I'm a realistic optimist.  :) :)

If I do start to donate most everything away...then you will know I have given up.  I can't imagine giving up. :) 

Well, that's it for this week.  I've been hearing Canadian geese overhead.  Grackles bickering on the patio.  Supposed to be in the 50s and 60s mostly for like the next 10 days.  No snow?  Maybe spring is actually arriving early.  We could still get snow or frost in May, for sure.  Usually don't plant up here until mid-May and even then sometimes it is a risk.  I'm feeling better than I was.  Life is good!  Till next week, my friends! :)  

April 7, 2025 Monday--5am

Good Morning!

I only see this pair of partridges--likely without mates.  Seems the false spring had the rest of them off nest building somewhere.

Keanna was here Tuesday.  The snow had started Monday night, if I remember correctly.  Snowed off and on for a couple of days.  Heavy wet snow.

That was the most snow I think we have gotten at one time all winter.  Here's the view from my patio from left to right.

Rabbits and birds were here early looking for food.

I put out some seed and Allie settled in to watch.

Didn't take them long--lol!

I went on the antibiotics for five days.  I'm a little better, but not all better.  Not running a temp anymore.  Just finished pills.  Did finally get moving by later in the week.

Changed the shower curtain.  Thinking spring--lol!

The snow was sinking.  

I finally got laundry done, letters set up to answer, banking for the month done, bullet/planner set up for April, and since Allie likes to sit and watch the door for some reason lately...I moved her bed from the bedroom that she hasn't been using lately to the spot where she watches the door.  Shockingly, she was happy with that.

Oh, and Allie and the blue flatter throw on "her" chair...took her a long time to finally lay on it.  And if I take that very throw and put it over me in my chair she won't set foot on it.  She especially doesn't like the fluffier softer ones I use that most cats I've ever had would prefer and make biscuits on.  Allie is so strange.  It took months for her to approve of the bed she's in above.  How is that one much different than this one behind my chair that she accepted first-and-only for the longest time?

 Only Allie knows--lol!  She has her secrets, I guess. ;)

By Sunday--the majority of the snow was gone and we were down to snowbanks once again.

Oh, and I decided that since these mandala pages are hard to color while inside of the book that won't lie flat and harder to tear out than I expected...well, I took a metal ruler and craft knife and cut all the pages out.  You can see the page on the right I tore out for Liam last time they were here.  What a mess!  It even ripped right into the picture.  He'll be pleased they will be easy to pick and color from now on.  Me, too!   Liam has taken to coloring these and that makes me happy.  :)  That's my colored pencil one on the left.  I need to do another one soon.

On Saturday there was a Hands Off gathering on the bridge between Fargo and Moorhead, Mn.  They were hoping for 500 people to show up and had about 2,000!  They plan to keep gathering for an hour every Friday for the next three months!  In April here they will meet in front of the post office in Fargo.  In May they will meet in Moorhead somewhere and then in June back to Fargo somewhere.  Made me very happy and lifted my spirits to see how many people came out all over the 50 states on Saturday.  Over 1300 different groups I heard.  :)  And I even heard there were international gatherings in our support, too.   

Another spirit lifter for me this week was on Sunday...I got a text from Leah asking "Map for the studio please".  Meaning she couldn't find my sketchy floor plan copy she has...and that their friends were probably over there again helping with the IKEA furniture!!!  Whoohoo!!  Yup!  What a wonderful surprise!  That meant they were either putting together the other hutch or the Billy bookcases that go in the studio.  

Was the Billy bookcases!

She needed to know where the hutches were going and where the Billy bookcases were going.  The three skinny ones are made to fit around a corner.  

The other hutch will go next to the one that is put together on that back wall.

The Billy bookcases are together!!  TaDa!

More to do in the living room/kitchen/great room--lol!  

But it is all coming together!

As far as the big IKEA furniture left to put together...we're down to another hutch for the studio, two 8-drawer dressers for the living room, and the new expandable kitchen table.

This past week Ian got to ring the bell for finishing Level 4 at Haley's Hope (help with dyslexia).

Proof that heavy wet snow stuck together well for snowman building.

The boys get deeply involved in their projects.  Here they were making a maze for some little bug thingies that crawl along--hex bugs or hex bots?    

And then Saturday was Home Depot craft day.

Earth Day planters.  :)

Anyways, that's about it for this week.

Nope--breaking news!

I just found out from Leah that there are problems with some of the rest of the furniture.  The other hutch and the two 8-drawer dressers!  The hutch is made wrong--parts drilled and made incorrectly so it won't fit together.  Has to be returned.  And there are not two 8-drawer units of drawers.  Turns out all we have is a few extra drawers.  So she has to check and see if we paid for those two 8-drawer units or if they accidentally gave us some extra drawers for the 12-unit sets of drawers.  And I don't think IKEA carries much of Nordi anymore...at least they don't have the ones I ordered online anymore.  *sigh*  We thought it was all there stacked in my garage.  

I have searched through IKEA to find a replacement that would work for those two sets of drawers.  I found some drawers that actually match my wardrobes--so they would work just fine.  Have to see what Leah finds out later.  She was too exhausted to go find the information Sunday night. 

Isn't it crazy how things just have gone wrong almost every step of the way with the build.  Now we will be dealing with IKEA and a trip to Minneapolis (about 4 hours one way).  I really hope they don't give us much grief about this.  They still carry the hutch, so that shouldn't be a problem to return.  And if we didn't order the two 8-drawer units--then we can return the extra drawers.  If we did order them--we need to get store credit as they don't carry them anymore.  Time will tell.  Always something, it seems.  So, putting furniture together has kind of come to a halt at the moment.  

I do have the three boxes that make up the new expandable kitchen table--but two of those boxes are still in my garage Leah said.  There are some smaller things (not from IKEA) that still have to be put together.  The wall shelves unit, bathroom bench, and a chair/step stool.  So maybe can get some other stuff put together in the meantime, I guess.  

Well, such is life, eh?  It's always something.  In the meantime, I just finished my meds.  Have to go in for a urine sample on Friday.  Feel a bit better than I did, anyways...for now, at least.  My health makes about as much progress as the apartment--ROFL!  ;)  Have a really good week and see you next Monday.  :) :)