My Only Sunshine

"probably benign"

On Friday, June 16,  I went for my first ever screening mammogram.  I had had a physical the Tuesday before and my doctor felt it was time for me to have a mammogram due to my family history.  My maternal grandmother died of breast cancer at a young age, before I was born.

The mammogram went well.  I had heard that mammograms hurt but I didn’t think it did.  The squeezing was even and over nearly as quickly as it began.  They took two images of each breast and I was done.  The mammography clinic that I went to was lovely and everyone was very nice.  Over all, a good experience as far as medical diagnostics go.

Three days or so after my mammogram my doctor’s office called.  They said that I needed a “call back” mammogram because they had seen density on my right breast that was making it hard to check it completely.  They assured me that this is very normal for younger breasts and that I didn’t need to worry.  OK, so I won’t worry.  I’ll just make an appointment for my “spot compression” mammogram and we can get this all taken care of.  It didn’t go quite that easily though.  When I called to make an appointment for my diagnostic mammogram (as opposed to my first which was a screening mammogram) they said that the doctor would be on vacation for two weeks so they could get me in for a mid July appointment.  At the time of the call I was calm and not worried, I wasn’t sure I could maintain that until mid July.

Look who came to stay

A couple of weeks ago a lost kitten found us.  When I say that, I mean it literally.  I was standing at the front door, and a tiny little furr ball ran right past my feet into the living room.  He was a little long haired tabby kitten and my children fell instantly madly in love.  The next day her family came to claim her.  It was a heart breaking 24 hours for two little girls with big hearts.  Since then we have been considering a new member in our family.

We have two cats who are one year olds, two kids who are 6 and 4, and two parents.  Now we also have Maggie.  She is a black labrador retreiver who is nearly 8 weeks old.  She's very lovable, if a bit lazy for a lab.  I'm sure it is just a matter of time before she is bouncing all over the place so we'll enjoy her sleepiness while it lasts.  As it stands, the kids wear her out over and over.

Here's a picture of how Ty feels about her.

We like rabbits around here

Yesterday the girls and I tried a new craft.  Sculpting with Sculpey polymer clay.  Everyone pretty much knows that polymer clay is nothing new to me.  I've been making knitting needle tips with it for a while now.  What I haven't done is let the kids get their hands on it. 

The polymer clay that I use is quite hard and difficult to use unless you have strong hands and machinary.  Sculpey is much softer and when using just white I don't have to worry about all the colors getting mixed together and turning into a big brown mess. 

The bunny on the left is the one I made and the bunny on the right is Bug's.  He he he, Bug's Bunny.  Bit loves rabbits so we each made her one.  I am so very impressed with the rabbit that Bug made.  The shape is really very good.  That is some 6 year old I have.

Mine came out very close to what I had in mind as well, which makes me happy.

I've also made a little ducky but he isn't painted yet.

Stretchy?

Have you seen this?

So you didn't come here just for a link, here are some pics.

This is the tie dye fiber Amy Boogie sent me, about 1/3 of the way into spinning.

Little Red Bag

I got my yarn for Dye o rama done but I needed something else neat to send to my buddy, and I needed it quick.  The end time is coming up pretty fast you know.  So I decided to sew something to go with the hand dyed yarn. 

The thing I was going to sew needed to be related to knitting, in my mind.  I also thought it should go with the swap somehow, but I didn't really have time to dye fabric too.  So I decided to make something that went well with the hand dyed SOCK yarn that was the theme of this swap.

Who doesn't need a sock sack?  I made a small drawstring bag that a sock knitter could wear over their wrist to hold their sock yarn as they knit. It's made from a good heavy fabric and is fully lined.

I decided what I wanted to make but didn't have a pattern for it so I worked it out on paper and then made it up some as I went.  I made a few mistakes as I went along, not always following the "measure twice, cut once" rule of sewing that I learn through my forays into quilting before I started to knit.  It turned out how I wanted it to though, and it didn't take me all that long to make.  I would say maybe two hours of solid work this evening, maybe a little more.

I used some ribbon for the drawstring because I didn't really want to have to mess with making bias tape and the ribbon matches so well with both the outer and inner fabric.  I even got the husbandly type to take a couple of pictures with me using the bag after I took the still shots.