On felting mice - yesterday I threw the latest Pink Lady and matching mice into the washing machine, vs. felting by hand - I definitely prefer the machine felted version, it's much tighter, and the mouse came out smaller and rounder. I don't think any amount of hand-thrashing can do it as well as my 11 year old Kenmore. I'm going to give the unstuffed mice a spin in the machine too, to get them into better shape.


Meanwhile, I'm giving away mice almost as fast as I can make them. My sweet retired neighbor has three lovely cats, all adopted from Petsmart like mine - we were talking the other evening and I offered her some mice. I ordered more yarn from Threadbear the other day. Rob promised me a yarn fix by the end of the week, USPS permitting. Good thing, too, because I'm developing the shakes as I contemplate running out of Cascade 220. My goal is to have a half dozen bags and at least a couple dozen mice stashed for the fall festival - bags aren't a problem, I'm not giving those away left and right (so far), but the mice are running out the door.


Still more meanwhile, I have three mice set aside for my friend's cats, and she mentioned to her 4 year old daughter that "Aunt Catherine is making a present," and I thought uh-oh, I'm not sure that "a present for the cats," is going to seem like a present to the child! I'm going to go through my stash and patterns this morning, before the nursing home, to see if there is anything I can whip up for her to accompany the cat gifts.


An update on my husband: I wanted to wait until I had given the kids a personal update, which I have done, I didn't want our daughter reading the latest on this blog rather than hearing it from me. My husband's condition is deteriorating further, he's sleeping almost all the time now, he's not eating and it's difficult to wake him. I am not sure he recognized me yesterday - or, more correctly, I think he knew who I was, but had no emotional response to my presence. One of the brain tumors is positioned in a way that the damage is like a lobotomy - in this case his emotions are basically gone, and he only responds to physical sensations - if the nurses have to move or reposition him it sometimes hurts him, and he still can speak clearly and complain about it, but he doesn't try to communicate anything else. I am at the nursing home every day, but I don't stay around the clock. Not to get too clinical about it, but his vital signs are still pretty strong and this could go on for some time, so I don't want to burn myself out prematurely. He's receiving good care and does not appear to be suffering. That's as good as it can be right now.


I'm fine. I'm sad, I'm tired, the days are incredibly long and difficult, but in a sense, it's almost a relief that this two year hell is almost over. I'm looking forward and thinking of changes I need to make in the coming months, everything from refinancing the house (finally!) to landscaping the backyard, to signing up for real estate licensing classes and getting my damn license back - I let it lapse ten years ago when we moved out of state, and now I'll have to go through the course and take the state exam all over again. I'm not planning on "quitting the day job" anytime soon, but it's nice to have a fallback position ready just in case.


Right now I'm purging the house of carbs and looking forward to starting the "South Beach Diet" - the book should be here tomorrow, I ordered it from Amazon. I'm still cringing about the name "South Beach Diet" - it sounds SO trendy/fluffy/faddy, but it's actually the diet developed at Mt.Sinai's cardiac prevention unit in Miami, and after reading about it, it sounds both do-able and medically sound. I don't have a lot of weight to lose, though I could stand to shed 20-25 lbs, but I do have a family history of heart disease and diabetes, and I'm hitting the age where these medical problems may start to be an issue. I've read a LOT of research that supports the idea that controlling carbs is far more important than controlling fat to prevent those problems. It makes sense to me, and as I said I'm facing an enormous lifestyle change, so I might as well start off on a healthy footing. I can see where it would be very easy to do what people seem to expect and wallow in the "Tragedy" of all of this - in fact, there's a few people who seem to be wallowing for me, and never cease to remind me of what a terrible tragic figure I am, "too young to be a widow," and all that. The biggest annoyance in all of this is dealing with people who are watching me like a lab experiment, waiting to see when I'll "crack." Some days, particularly at the office, I felt like I was surrounded by drama parasites, people who were getting off on my situation in a vicarious way. I'm half-dreading going back to work, because I am going to have to scrape these tragedy ticks off my body every damn day. If I do crack, it probably will manifest itself by my beating the crap out of them. :-)


So that's the update. When I get myself organized, I will post pictures of the growing Pink Lady bag collection, among other things.