Busy week

This has been a crazy, busy week.  I started off the week with Easter of course.  It was a nice Easter.  Stan had to work all weekend.  He was on call and the normal night shift person injured his back, so Stan had to work both Friday and Saturday night.  He didn't go to church on Sunday.  He was awake when we got home though and had the ham in the oven. We had dinner then Bryon and Margie came over and we did an Easter egg hunt with the cousins.  We watched a few funny Youtube videos and listened to a few funny songs too.  It was a good day.  Nice and calm.  No drama, no problems.  All was good.

Monday I had PT and I had an appointment with Dr Westgate.  It was my normal every 3 month appointment to get my Botox in my leg.  She was pleased with the progress I've made with walking.  I haven't posted on here much about that since last year when I had to start using a wheel chair, but since then, I have improved a lot.  Just before Christmas, I started walking just a little bit.  At first, it was only a few steps and it was so slow.  Now, I can go 40 feet or so before I have to rest.  I can't walk with shoes on though.  My toes drag too much so my shoes cause me to trip.  I have to use a walker too.  I've been trying to walk some around the house when I can.  I walk in the kitchen when I am making dinner and while I am sewing.  Anyway, Tuesday, I had an appointment with a new doctor.  He is evaluating me for a baclofen pump.  I am taking oral baclofen to treat the spasms I have.  They are the worst in my right leg, which is why I get the Botox, but even the Botox can't take care of all of them.  I can't handle the side effects at a dose that is effective enough to treat the spasticity.  By putting in a pump, they can give me the baclofen directly into the spinal cord and then it will be a much lower dose, so almost no side effects even though it will be way more effective. I then had Cub Scouts at my house; we did sewing and wood working.  Wednesday wasn't busy at all, but I needed to rest all day.  I was exhausted from the previous 2 days.  Thursday was just errands and normal stuff.  Friday brought PT and babysitting in the afternoon.

I was trying to be really careful last week to not over do things because if I get too exhausted, I set myself up for a flare.  It turns out, I was already starting into a flare and didn't even know it yet.  Starting around the 3rd of April, I started having a burning sensation around my chest, along with a lot of pressure and occasionally an electric shock feeling.  It is commonly called the "MS Hug".  Not the kind of hug you really want though.  A few days later, I had a week of overwhelming fatigue set in.  I didn't think anything of it at the time.  I thought it was just the change in weather since it was getting hotter.  I told Dr Westgate about this at my appointment and she was a little concerned.  Thursday, the weakness started.  The strength in my legs is down about 50%.  Considering I don't have a lot of strength in my right leg anyway, it took a lot away.  Now losing strength in my left leg, my walk is more of a shuffle, when I can walk at all.  I've had some bladder issues with this flare as well, but I won't get into those in such a public place.  I'll be calling Dr Westgate first thing in the morning and I suspect I will be starting steriods by tomorrow afternoon.  I'm not looking forward to this.  Stan gave me a blessing this afternoon though and I feel much better after that.  I was told that I would regain all that I had lost.  That was a huge relief.  It was frustrating me that I had just lost 6 months of physical therapy work and I wasn't looking forward to having to work again to regain that.  It seemed like an endless cycle.  I'll try to post later this week and keep everyone posted on my progress on this flare.

I decided the best way to allow people to download the Woman of Faith block instructions was to just upload the instructions to  4shared.  They are in a Word Document.  It anyone can give me tips on posting tutorials on blogs, I'm all ears.  I'm not very tech savvy when it comes to the internet.  I know how to do the things I do very well, but I don't do much on the internet, so not my area.  Feel free to share these instructions with anyone.  They are not copyrighted at all at this point.  The block is a very common block and the quotes are from the Book of Mormon and General Conference.  I think it would be cool for as many people as possible to be doing a Book of Mormon/Woman of Faith quilt.  We should share our testimonies through our talent and love of quilting.  If you do decide to make a quilt, please send me a link.  I'd love to see your quilt and your blocks.  Do you think it would be tacky for me to pin my own post into pinterest to get more people interested in doing a Book of Mormon quilt?  I don't care; I may do it anyway.  There isn't a blog/pinterest police to stop me and I don't think it is against their terms of use. 

I almost forgot the link  Women of Faith or Book of Mormon Quilt Block 1

Great class

I took a great class today at A Quilter's Folly.  It was about quilting a quilt using your regular sewing machine.  I love the look of a quilt after it has been quilted and  finished and washed and it shrinks up and gets all soft.  All I can do is a stippling stitch.  I don't have any interest in hand quilting.  Hand work is not my cup of tea by any means.  I have tried to do things that are fancier, but it has always looked awful.  This class is all about how to create beautiful machine quilting with your sewing machine.  No long arm quilter needed.  That's good because I won't have the money or the room for a long arm machine for a very long time.

The class was taught be a man named Lane.  He is a self taught quilter.  He does all of his quilts on his home machine.  They aren't even fancy machines.  He uses older machines even, not even the fancier quilting machines that have the longer arm area with more room for the quilt.  I started with some easier stuff and then went onto some harder stuff.  Some of it looked pretty crappy and some of it looked pretty good.  I didn't do too good on the stuff that involved back tracking over previous stitches.  I need to practice that.  We have homework to so I'll get more practice though.  For practice, we have to do a large square, like a 15x15 square quilt area and try to fill the entire thing.  I'll add that to all the other sewing I have to do over the next 2 weeks.  Why do I do this to myself.  My list of sewing projects I need to do just seems to be getting longer and longer.  Unfortunately, none of the things on my list are for me.  They are all for other people.  I need to start telling people no.  That has always been something I've had a problem with.  I say yes, yes, yes, yes, until I am in over my head, then and only then do I say no.  Anyway, that is an entirely different post.

On a different subject, I am getting my next round of Botox injections on Monday.  I am very ready for them.  The spasticity isn't as bad as it got in December, probably because I was so stressed out with the holidays in December.  It's bad enough though.  I start to forget how bad the spasms are when the Botox is working until it wears off.  I just can't take enough Baclofen to make a difference during these times.  I'd do nothing but sleep.  Speaking of Baclofen,  I see a physical medicine specialist on Tuesday to find out more about getting a Baclofen pump.  I know I will still have to undergo a test injection to make sure it is even going to be effective.  That is the part I am really  not looking forward to.  If it works, I'm not looking forward to the surgery either, but at least I know I will get good pain meds after surgery.  I'll just take things one step at a time though and make sure I get plenty of priesthood blessings.  I know God will help me through this.  I know if this is what is best for me, it will work out for the best.

Women of Faith Quilt, or Book of Mormon Quilt

Here is the first block for our block of the month program we are starting at our church quilting group.  Our group is called Sisters in Stitches.  It is a group of LDS women who meet once a month to share our love of quilting and to teach new sisters how to quilt.  We decided recently that there are other quilts about Women of the Bible and such, but we wanted one that represented the LDS faith.  This one is going to be all about our testimonies as LDS women.  

For those of you who don't know what LDS means, it stands for Latter-Day Saint which is how we refer to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as Mormons.  

This block is called the Cornerstone.  I chose this one because the Book of Mormon is the cornerstone of our religion.  President Ezra Taft Benson said " The Book of Mormon is the Keystone in our witness of Jesus Christ, who is Himself the cornerstone of everything we do.  It bears witness of His reality with power of clarity."  In the introduction of the Book of Mormon, it says, “Concerning this record the Prophet Joseph Smith said: “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”  I chose the colors I did because of the YW colors.  In the YW colors, green is the color for knowledge.  We receive much of our knowledge of the gospel from the Book of Mormon.  The gold color stands for virtue.  As a virtuous women, I will be able to return to live with my Father in Heaven.  I plan on using YW colors for all of my quilt blocks.  For me, this is going to represent more a Women of Faith quilt than just a Book of Mormon quilt.  This past year, I have really struggled with my relationship with my Heavenly Father and my faith has been tested.  This quilt is going to represent that test of faith that I have had.  It is going to be very personal for me.  I hope other people can find their own personal journey through their own quilt.

I plan on putting the instructions for this block on the web site some time soon.  I have it in word format and I'm not sure what the best way to put it on here would be, especially since I have some pictures included that are jpg format.  I'll think about that and get those instructions up soon.  I'm sure there are other members of the church who would love to make a Book of Mormon quilt.  I hope to have the instructions up by the end of the week.  Bug me if I don't get them up, if there is still anyone reading this blog.