Hey all,

Life is in shades of gray, or at least i look at it that way.  However, my beads yesterday were black and white and they turned out nice.  I really enjoy them and over the past few months i have ignored black and white.  I think i will go down and make some more today.  Have a great day!

more animals

  Do you see the flakes falling in this picture?  I love it!!!!

Today it is snowing and i am so happy because i do not have to go out!!!  This weekend though, Anna broke her right arm bones (both) down by her wrist!  She will not be happy because she will not get to go sled riding, ugh!  She was snowboarding at perfect north when it happened.  Of course that means hard time writing and no sports for her for about 9 weeks.  I will help her with her homework writing.  She will probably get a new cast in two weeks that will be below her elbow and not bent.  Her thumb is immobilized also right now so it is very difficult.  I am lucky that it was just her arm and not something threatening, there are so many people struggling with their lives and two bones in the arm will heal.  I have her healthy and happy otherwise, although her whining might make me take her back to that slope and thrown her down it before it is over, hee hee!!!  No, we will get through it and will come out the other side better off.  You never know, her volleyball club director/coach wants to develop her left arm and has many things in store for her to keep her moving.  We have to wait 2 weeks as a couch potato and then we will talk about what she can do at club.  Basketball is done for the season although she rode the bus yesterday to support the team.  i went as well, but in my own car!!!!!  Here are some pics of some of the new beads, these are smaller, not the big whomping beads i make (those are still coming)!  Enjoy the white outside!

It has been a few days now and life has been rolling by for all of us here, but it has been much slower for Lori, Michael, my aunt and uncle and the kids.  Lets see, I must update you all for this story has not ended but there has definately been miracles along the way.  Lori got out of ICU a little while back and she became coherent and they could understand her words.  She understood everything but as the time rolled on she stopped talking and they were concerned.

  I must also say that my previous posts were not accurate on her condition.  You know the chain thing where you hear from someone who hears from someone and it gets out of control.  I learned a lot today about what actually is going on and what happened to her and why they think it happened.  However, they will not truly know for sure there are just variations from the doctors and their theories.

My Aunt Brenda told me that she came to Drake and apparently Lori said that her chest hurt so they checked her and found blood clots in several areas of her body.  She is now on medicine for that and it seems to be doing its job although what is next?  It has been so up and down constantly that they are exhausted.  Lori seems to have suffered an injury to her brain stem and it is affecting her eyes, speech and other things but she still understands all of your words whether you can understand her back.  She seems to be able to communicate better when she is not tired but then her eyes are affected and she becomes less coherent once tired.  I went in to see her and she recognized me and said my name.  I told her i loved her and she said “I love you to”!  Wow, that was so wonderful to hear.  It made me happy that she knew me but it made me sad for all of the years that we have been living our lives without each other.  Yes, she is my cousin, but life has kept us busy and we have drifted away.  I was so touched at that moment that I told myself that I wanted to be around her, I wanted to know the Lori that I grew up with and always loved.  She is a blessing every day that she deals with this trauma that is causing so much emotion.  I truly believe that she will recover even if they are putting percentages on it, I know this person and I know that she is just wanting to burst out of this and go on with her life.  I am asking that you all continue to pray for her, she is lovely! 

By the way, the baby has been given a name by her and her name is Delilah (not sure of spelling) Grace Smith! 

I will go back later this week, i am now aware and know that she needs to see people now.  I was confused because you hear things second hand and i was not sure if i should be visiting.  However, i can see that she needs it, she knew I was there so she will know if i do not come back, i cannot bear that, she is too special!  Thanks for reading!  I will post tomorrow with some pics.

Hug someone you love and tell them something that you might not say normally, just because!  As you know if you have been in to buy some of my colorful beads, i named all of these “Lori” beads in honor of the hope and light that she brings to this world.  I originally made these because of some colorful chicks (yes the birds) that i saw in one of my posts below.  I was actually making these when i got the call that Lori was in the hospital fighting for her life.  So, these beads from now on will be named only for Lori.  I hope you all will enjoy buying these and there will be more this spring to get ready for summer.  Have a great day, it is a beautiful snowy day outside!

The title of my post today is of concern to me.  Apparently there is a site on facebook called “I Hate Cats” that Has 2000 members.  It is not about the loathing of cats, it is how to kill and injure cats.  There are a lot of glass people out there that are angry about this.  I heard it from Sarah Hornik (i subscribe to her blog)!  Then, she told some people, and they told some people and so on…Now, i am disturbed that anyone can have a page like that on facebook but i hear there is one also about the killing of babies.  What in the name of sanity is going on?  Please feel free to express your outrage on facebook about this to the moderators.  The more people that do it, hopefully someone will yank these type of pages off for good.  thanks, that is all i am going to say right now.  Please comment me if you do!  Or, just comment me about your opinions on this matter. 

I am still making beads and excited about having them all done!  Some other exciting news is that Lori is eating baby food, but at least she is now swallowing.  Her eyes are still unable to move except straight ahead and her left side is not working (the stroke).  You still cannot understand her slurring but she is making progress.  Please keep her on your prayer list as she is still struggling but thankfully out of ICU and onto rehabilitation.  She understands what is being said to her and i really feel she will make a full recovery.  I am grateful for the miracle of her life!!!

Pics soon!!!  I thought it was appropriate to post this picture!!

moar funny pictures

I received some FANTASTIC news today!  Lori has been taken off of her ventilator and is breathing on her own and her kidneys started functioning at full capacity.  They are even talking about moving her out of ICU!!  Can you believe it????  Thanks to all of you who never gave up hope on my cousin, even when my own hope was waning you all would email me and push me on.  The doctors truly do believe it is a miracle that she has come back at all and this quickly.  God has answered the many prayers of so many people.  This mother deserves to be with her family and her family with her.  I am sure it will still be some time and hopefully not many backward steps of her recovery.  I guess we really do not know what to expect yet BUT it seems the coma was a response to brain swelling from the stroke and then obviously the rest was what she needed and time.  It is weird how it can all change around so quickly!  I will keep you all posted, oh, and Ellen, I think we need to learn how to do a cartwheel, hee!!  Watch this!!! This is how i feel!!!

You know, I have had a lot of worries lately due to the situation with my cousin Lori.  Not selfish worries, but the kind that just seem to come from a place inside that aches for her husband, her children and her parents.  Lori suffered a stroke the other day but her brain scan came back with pinpoint areas of damage.  They seemed to be optimistically worried but they have seen worse.  However, with the multitude of problems still existing it seems they have not been giving a lot of encouraging remarks.  Today, Lori went into a coma.  I was in bed tired and deciding that i was not going to church because of my laziness and the phone rang.  I was told the news and i knew that i had to get to church and start praying for these people whose lives are in a state of the “twilight zone”.  I know that we sometimes feel guilty when we continue to live our lives in the face of someones tragic situation.  It seems as at those times you are closest to God because you see better things in your children, you tolerate a little bit more from your spouse, and you might even let more than one person out instead of the obligitory one driver code.  However, we still live our lives and we deserve to, we are loved!  I only can hope and pray that it is Lori’s fate to continue on this great journey of life.  I have not given up hope and I am grateful everyday that i get to call this life of mine a gift, and fortunately we remember that faced with challenges, because it is not always clear is it?  Choose a positive day over doom and gloom and the sun will rise again to meet your face the next day, whatever Gods plan is.  Thanks to all for being so patient with my situation lately.

 oops, the turquoise/green beads somehow moved up here from down there, ha!!  i cannot fix this!  sooo, you get to see these beads again, ugh!!

Now, for beads, I promised some bright ones in honor of the little colored chicks in the video i posted.  I just thought they would be fun and bright for such dreary winter days!!  They will compliment a lot of the other beads in Troll!!  The other set is colors i do not use together and i thought i would try it, and I wore these and had many compliments so i guess they are fine. 

Peace!!

Well, first the update on Lori!  She is still in ICU and on a ventilator and her kidneys are not working yet HOWEVER, the swelling is coming down and she actually opened her eyes last night.  That is encouraging and thanks for all of the prayers, keep em coming!  Now, as for my workout, I am working out but still eating bad, well, maybe a little better but still not great.  I am going there right after i write this, and then to the studio!  I made these beads per order from Denise in Arizona, she really wanted a real purple, not a lavender, so this is what she is getting, well unless she emails me back and does not like them.  I will keep my fingers crossed!  Peace!

So, these are so cute and colorful, and apparently very popular in other countries!  This inspires me to make some really bright beads tomorrow, i went down and cleaned off my table, put my hourdes of glass away and sucked up all of the little glass that goes scattering all over.  i am ready, set and go tomorrow morning!!!  Have a great night my peeps (ha, you get it?)  I am sooooo funny, i amuse myself!!!!

 
more animals
Well, today is a rainy dreary day and i have been spending the morning and early afternoon straightening and putting away clothes.  I took a picture of this bead that i could not wait to show you all, but the picture does not look like what I see when i look at it (I hope that makes sense)!  It looks prettier just looking at it then in the picture when i take it and that bothers me because that means that you cannot see what I see!  Maybe it is just me, or maybe it is that i still have not learned to take pictures with my new camera and my old camera is still being used!  I have complained for almost a year about wanting a great camera and now my wonderful husband gets me one and i have not spent the time to learn it yet!!!  Well anyway, have a wonderful day!!!!  Choose a positive day!!!!  Peace

Well, the beads are there!!!!  Remember, there will be more through the month culminating in a big splash of beads for Valentines at the trunk show.  i believe i will be there thursday and friday, hee hee!!  I really look forward to it, and hey make sure and comment me if you want to see particular color schemes kay????  On a more personal note, my cousin Lori is still in ICU with a multitude of problems.  She is showing slow signs that she might be progressing however there are still too many variables right now.  the bleeding, the kidneys not working yet, the callapsed lung, the heart problem and still there is also a risk of brain damage.  it seems that she has a lot of blood inside her tummy that they cannot try and get out because it is not clotting and it might spark another bleeding episode.  They still do not know why she bled so much to begin with.  they speculate that the umbilical cord pulled away from her too early causing the blood to spill out in the amount that it did and she would have also had an open portal for more blood to exit.  she has now had 25 units of blood and they hope the bleeding will not occur again.  The dialysis is helping to release some of the fluids that were pumped into her so hopefully her swelling and tightness will start to subside soon.  She is not out of the woods and is still on life support for breathing.  Keep her in your thoughts and prayers if you would.  She needs all she can get, and so do her children and husband.  Thanks!!!  pics tomorrow!!!

Well, first news is I will not be delivering beads yet.  I am sorry but i spent the greater part of yesterday at the hospital.  My cousin is very ill.  She gave birth to her new baby girl yesterday early morning and then everything went crazy.  I will save you the details but her heart stopped for 25 minutes (twice), her lung collapsed and her kidneys shut down.  They have been working on getting her stable and it will be a long road.  she is unaware of anything and they found out through echo cardiogram that she has cardiomyopathy.  Her heart is only working 1/5th of what it should and they also do not know about brain damage.  Her daughter is beautiful and everyone has been taking care of her at the hospital so she is held and not just in the nursery.  Right now, things are touch and go and they started dialysis to help her kidneys start up again.  On top of everything, she bled out almost 8 pints of blood and they do not still know why or where the blood came from.  I think they are flying by the seat of their pants right now with the multitude of problems that she has.  However, they are doing a wonderful job and we are so thankful to them.   I am home for a shower, to post on the site and to make a few beads and i will be back over to the hospital tomorrow.  They wanted everyone to go home to give just her husband and mom/dad some time alone.  please say prayers for my cousin Lori and her husband Michael and their 4 children.  Also, my brother in law is in the hospital with a 104 degree fever and pneumonia as well as my OTHER brother in law who had an asthma attack a few days ago and went into the hospital.  His heart has stopped twice but he is now stable and they found out that it was his Vagus (sp?) nerve causing the blood pressure to drop when he coughed during his breathing treatments, SO he is at least out of the woods and out of ICU.  Well, they say things happen in threes so i hope this is all because it is a lot! 

Thanks so much for always reading and supporting me on my site and my life.  Happy New year to all of you and i will let you all know what is going on very soon, and again, Lori really needs your prayers!  talk soon

I got this out of the kiln when i got home a little bit ago!!!  Well, off to the shower!  Peace!!