Retirement

I retired 3 months ago.  It is strange and wonderful at the same time.  I have to plan my days differently, so I make sure that I accomplish something.  My days have been filled with crafting, 2 trips, knitting, cleaning my craft room, visiting with friends, grandma days, taking classes and enjoying life.  There are some days that I over plan - thinking that I need to cram everything into one day.  But, I still have tomorrow to complete tasks, just not the weekend. 

 I enjoy my Sundays more because I'm not working on lesson plans or prepping for school.  Today, I spent the day making Halloween goodies.  I am wanting fall weather, sweater weather instead of the heat that we are still getting.

Every day is a new beginning.

I took this photo from the airplane as we were leaving Hawaii.  The most beautiful sunrise after a storm.

Priceless Sunday

I wish there were more Sundays like this one.  Waking up to the three oldest grand babes asleep on the floor in my bedroom.

Papa getting donuts for breakfast.

Knitting with the rain coming down.

Hubby making dinner.

This Sunday has been priceless.

Joy58 - The Project

Elise Blaha Cripe has a wonderful blog.  Last year, she did a project to celebrate her 29th birthday.  MAKE29- she made 29 or 2900 projects every month.  I wanted to do something similar, but lets face it I will be 58 in March and I am not doing 58 of anything, every month.  But, the project kept haunting me and I needed to figure out a way to do it.  This year, has lots of changes for me - I will be retiring in June, spending more time with hubby and the grand kids.  Trying to figure out where I fit in to this new life.   I thought about the things that bring me JOY and wanted to do more of those things, in smaller chunks.  I love creating things, but I don't really need 20 knitted shawls - but I realize that  I love the process of creating things.

Then, yesterday, Elise revealed her next birthday year project - the idea of giving.  You can read about it here.  My idea hit me so strong that it almost knocked me over.  I love when someone inspires me. So here is my project for the year.

4 Joys a month x 12 months = 48 Joys + 10 extras = 

 Joy58 

Here is the Project:

Joy of Giving -  Every month, I will give something to a charity.  It could be a hand made item, like a shawl or hat or quilt.  I am doing a lot of test knitting for pattern designers, so I could donate the finished item to the cancer center where my sister is going.  I, am giving myself a little fudge room - it could also be items from my house that I am cleaning out.  Something that will bring Joy to someone else and me by giving.

Joy of Reading - Every month, I will read a new book.  I love to read, but after working all day, I am exhausted, so my choices of books are pretty easy.  I want to read a best seller each month, a book that I can discuss with my husband. A book that moves and inspires me.  A book that has a reaction.  Suggestions for books are appreciated.

Joy of Learning - Every month, I want to learn something new.  Something big, like digital scrapbooking, changing the oil in the car (probably will let hubby do that), stained glass - something that grabs my inner teacher and lifelong learning experience.

Joy of Food - Every month, experience a new restaurant.  Hubby and I love to eat out, but we are always going to the same places.  I want to try something new and experience all that the restaurant has to offer.  It doesn't have to be in our City, but something new and fresh.  We watch the Food Network and they talk about all these yummy places to eat.  I want to try some of those places.

+10 Extras - During the year, I want to visit 10 different beach piers.  I live in California and I have only seen 3 piers.  Hubby and I put it on our bucket list of places that we would like to see this year, when I retire.  So, I am taking it off of the bucket list and adding it to this project.

During the year, I want to create a book of all these experiences.  Maybe, I will do it digitally and have it bound or scrapbook with paper, not sure yet.  I want to experience more JOY on purpose this year, because I am finding out life is way too short.

One Word 2015

I started thinking of what my word would be for 2015 about Christmas time.  I wrote a bunch of words down and thought about them for a couple of weeks.  One word kept popping out at me.  I kept trying to push it back in, because he seemed to Christmasy.  But, it wouldn't allow it.

My word wanted to be heard.  So "JOY" became my word for 2015.

I was ready to blog about it.  Tell the reasons why I wanted this word to be the word.  I was going to find the JOY in everyday life, everyday decisions.

Then, Monday, January 5th happened and I immediately couldn't find a single reason for JOY.  None.

My sister was diagnosed with Stage 3 Ovarian Cancer, at the beginning of December.  She started her chemo treatment, we were going to fight this together.  She had a doctor's appointment and we asked the statistical question.  Blah, blah, blah.

If she didn't continue with chemo, what was her life expectancy?  

The doctor said, 6 months.  She had a rapidly growing cancer that would attach itself to something else in her abdomen, sometimes the liver.

I hit the wall, didn't see that train coming.

If she did chemo, what was her life expectancy, especially since she had cancer before and was so weak?

The doctor said that not many patients even make it to the 5 year mark. What?????

Hit by another train.  We were both speechless, we knew that it wasn't good, but we didn't expect that answer.

There was no JOY, I couldn't find  a single thing to be JOYFUL about it.  I walked out of the room and lost it at the nurse's station.  Like in a pile in front of the nurse's station.  But, I pulled it together and went back to my sister and carried on.

In the two weeks since that date, both my parents have been in the hospital with pneumonia, my sister was in the hospital to gain her strength, and received blood.  I got bronchitis and I had to go to Colorado to tell my sister's daughter, my niece about the outcome.  It was one of the hardest things I have had to do.  We still haven't told my parents, yet, because they have been so sick.

But, where is the JOY in this - my word seemed like it needed to be changed to FAITH. 

But, I want to find JOY in the everyday.

I want to experience JOY with my sister for the time that she has left.  I want to bring her JOY.  I want her to see the JOY in the world and both of us to be apart of it.  But, how can you find JOY in this horrible disease.

I, guess, I need to find out.

Yesterday

Yesterday, was one of the roughest days I have had.  My sister was diagnosed in early November with cancer... again.  We were shock, it had been 30 years ago. At that time, she was pregnant with her only child.  She had cervical cancer, but because of the pregnancy it spread to her lymph nodes.  The doctors wanted to take the baby.  My sister refused.  After the birth, they immediately started radiation treatment, followed by chemo.  On her first chemo appointment, they overdosed her and she lost her hair in the parking lot. My sister was so sick.  The chemo was awful. They had to knock her out for the other treatments.

Today, that beautiful niece is 30. 

So, when the doctor called in the beginning of November, we ALL felt like we just experienced a horrific car crash.  She had surgery the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to remove her ovaries, tumor and 7 nodules. The doctor said that the tumor was a different looking tumor and that she would have to have some chemo, but we would know more after the pathology report.  They sent it to the Mayo clinic. She hadn't been eating, was depressed - sleeping all day.

Then, we got the call last Tuesday that it was Stage 3 ovarian cancer.  We weren't ready for that news.  But, SHE really wasn't ready for that news.  She has been angry, sad, mad at everyone.  Why her?  Why a second time.  The fear of going through chemo again, was worse than the fear of dying.  

She made a decision to fight through the chemo, still being angry.  I took her to her first chemo,  It took me 2 hours, patiently waiting for her to get ready to get in the car.  When we got to the clinic, we would walk a little to a bench or chair and she would rest, then repeat it until we got to the door.  I hated seeing her hurt this much, but I was holding it together - for her.  We got her all settled into the chair and the wonderful chemo nurse explained all the medicines.

My sister and I held each other's hands and cried when they started the chemo medicine.  

She kept waiting for the side effects, she didn't have any.

She waited to start feeling horrible and throwing up, like the last time - it didn't happen.

When it was over, she said she was starving.  I think the extra fluids helped her.  I got her something to eat on the way home and she ate all of it.  We thought she would get sick, it didn't happen. By the time, we got home (a 2 hour drive) - she said that this chemo was 100 times better than the last time. 

I hope that she did well last night, I will check on her this morning.  We made it through the first step for her healing.

Simple

This morning I am craving simple. I am tired of running and not being able to catch up ... On anything

My soul wants quiet

But how do I find the balance

Any suggestions????

Organizing my Pinterest

I love Pinterest.  I might even be slightly addicted to it.  However, my boards are a mess.  I spent 20 minutes looking for a breakfast recipe and never found it - so I decided to get organized.  I love looking at the pins, I would like to actually use my boards for inspiration and creating.  This meant, I needed to get organized.

The first thing I did was to look at my boards.  Some of the cute titles of the boards just didn't work for me anymore or the board was so huge I would never be able to find anything.  I renamed some of my boards.  I put "celebrate" in front of any board that was a holiday.  That way they would all be together, instead of all over my "mother board".

Next step, I wanted the individual boards to be in alphabetical order on the "mother board".  I clicked on the individual board then dragged and dropped it where I wanted it to be on my "mother board".  It is so much easier to find things on the board now.  It reminded me of the game where you would slide the tiles over.

Then, I took a board - "yum" - and broke it up into individual boards.  I want to be able to find the pins, quickly.  Plus, sometimes when I am looking for something on one of my boards - I get distracted, lol.

This took me some time to do and I'm not finished yet.  But, my "mother board" is user friendly.  I will probably break up some of the boards.  My Christmas board is huge and it is hard to find things.  So, I will probably sub-category them into smaller file boards.  It will be easier for my daughter-in-laws to find things on my board too.

I plan on spending 15 minutes every day cleaning and organizing my boards.  Now, I just need to quit pinning.