Alphabe-Thursday - B is for Build A Bear Workshop

I am linked to Alphabe-Thursday hosted by Jenny Matlock "off on a tangent..." We'll be going through the alphabet and this week it's the letter "B." (I missed the letter "A" last week, but the first two weeks are practice weeks.) Each week we'll post something for that week's letter. For all the information on this event head on over to Jenny's blog.

"B" AS IN BUILD A BEAR WORKSHOP

A couple of years ago I made a Build A Bear Workshop for my Vogue Dolls (Ginny, Jeff, and Jill) and other similar sized dolls. I used both vintage and modern day dolls.

WELCOME TO THE BUILD A BEAR WORKSHOP



IT'S GINNYFAITH'S BIRTHDAY

CHOOSE ME

HEAR ME

STUFF ME

STITCH ME

FLUFF ME

DRESS ME

DRESSING ROOM

NAME ME

THE BIRTHDAY CAKE

GOOD BYE, THANKS FOR COMING!

WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED YOUR VISIT.

Another SECOND TIME AROUND TUESDAY

Today I'm participating in Second Time Around Tuesday hosted by Diane at A Picture Is Worth a 1000 Words. A list of this week's participants is on her blog.

I'm sharing my coffee table which I bought up near Round Top, Texas during the antique fair that's held twice a year. I found this table at one of the booths along the side of the road. It's made from an old door. What I like about this table is that it's already beat up and I don't have to worry about scratches or dings.
Here's the table cleared off so you can see what I mean.

No one has to worry about putting their feet up on the table and being comfortable, putting a drink down, etc. And it 's a great size too.

THE HAPPY 101 AWARD!

Thank you Carey at Chicory Nits for bestowing the Happy 101 award upon me!

I first stumbled upon Carey's blog when I participated in Second Time Around at A Picture Is Worth a 1000 Words. Carey has a beautifully designed blog and among other things she puts up pictures of her miniatures. Once I saw that I was hooked! Be sure and pay her a visit at Chicory Nits to see some of her creations! She's a new blogger, but off to a great start.

One of the conditions to receiving this award is to make a list of ten things that make you happy. Here's my list:

1. Our son being in remission from Hodgkin's Lymphoma!!! (That's definitely # 1!)

2. When our whole family is together...Jim, Keith, Troy and Reid.

3. When our sweet dog Sophie greets us. She's always happy.

4. When every single one of our six cats ignores us. Hey they're cats!

5. The rare occasions that MaMa our feral cat will allow me to pet her while she eats canned food. (This only happens with canned food - not dry - and only when she feels like it.)

6. Long walks outside when the weather is good...not too hot and humid and not too cold. My favorite place is Brazos Bend State Park in Texas.

7. Hot apple cider with whipped cream on top when it's cold.

8. Watching The Amazing Race on television and then discussing it at length with Keith and Reid. I love that show.

9. Playing with my doll collection. I don't just collect dolls...I actually play with them! I love setting them up in scenes. Just like when I was a child I play Ginny. That's what my friends and I used to say. "Come over to my house after school and we'll play Ginny.

10. Going up near Round Top, Texas when the Round Top Antique Fair takes place. I don't go to that...I go to Warrenton and surrounding areas where people set up in cow pastures and sell their wares.

You're supposed to pass the award on to someone else. I'm going to pass it on to Loretta at House of Houben. Loretta enjoys collecting dolls too and her blog contains doll pictures, old photographs, and much more. I originally met her on a Chatty Cathy doll list many years ago.

THANK YOU CAREY!

WHAT I DID THIS WEEKEND

Yes, I know it's January 24, 2010. I actually considered leaving the Christmas stuff up and pretending I was ready early for Christmas this year, but Zoom had been climbing branches and the poor tree was looking pretty pathetic.

Jim took Reid to chemo on Saturday and I stayed home and started to take things down.

When he came home he helped with the disconnect.

And we packed and stacked boxes and containers.

God willing I'll get this stuff all over to the storage shed sometime this week.



Sunday morning Keith left for Austin with his cats. He works for the State of Texas and was here for work on Saturday.

Poor Keith. He probably won't like me telling you this, but his one cat always "poops" or "pees" in her carrier. I think she's trying to tell him she doesn't enjoy traveling.

After Keith got off I drove Reid down to MD Anderson for a shot that he has to get 24 hours after chemo to build up his white blood cells. (No photo...he doesn't consider this a photo op.)


And I'm worrying about our feral cat MaMa. I knew she'd be scared when we had the work done on the house Friday. I'm sure she panicked when she heard the workmen come into the back yard and I haven't seen her since Friday morning when I fed her. The food wasn't touched yesterday which surprised me with all the other neighborhood cats and possums around. This morning the food was eaten, but I don't know if it was her. Until I actually spot her I won't feel comfortable. I just hope she found a safe place nearby to hang out.

This has happened before. When my husband caught and brought her inside for Hurricane Ike she disappeared for a couple of days after he released her. It kept her safe, but she didn't appreciate it one bit. Here's a picture I took of her in 2004. It's not easy to get a picture of her since she tends to run when she see me holding something different in my hand (other than food). She's been with us for almost 9 years and I think she was probably close to a year old when we first spotted her. That's really old for a feral cat.

Please come home MaMa!!

Viewing PINK SATURDAY blogs - My PINK SATURDAY post appears below this one

Last Saturday some kind bloggers told me how to view the blogs from the list at Beverly's blog "How Sweet The Sound." I had been going to her blog, clicking on a link, and then backing up into her blog again for the next one. It was very time consuming to do it that way. From the comments left on my blog I discovered I wasn't the only one that didn't know, so I'm going to share what I learned here.

When going down the list of PINK SATURDAY participants on her blog just right click on the link and it will open that blog in a new window. Then you just click it away when finished and go back to the window with Beverly's blog.

Someone else told me that you can just hold down the shift key while left clicking on the link and it will do the same thing.

So there are two ways to do it and both are a lot faster than backing up into Beverly's blog each time.

To visit Beverly's blog just click on the PINK SATURDAY logo on my sidebar. My PINK SATURDAY post appears below this one.

Vintage Cards and Chatty Cathy for PINK SATURDAY

Today for PINK SATURDAY I'm going to share some vintage birthday cards that I received as a child. My mother saved them intending to add them to my childhood scrapbook. On the back of each card she put the year and my initials. They're from 1951 or 1952 and they all have some PINK on them. For a list of PINK SATURDAY participants, and to find out what PINK SATURDAY is all about, just click on the PINK SATURDAY logo on my sidebar.

I love looking at these old vintage cards. They're so different from what is made today. Feel free to help yourself to any of these cards. I enjoy sharing.







This one is a pop-up card and is really cute when opened, but impossible to scan that way.

I must have been mad at my sister because my mother added the year and initials and I added a note about my sister. I had never noticed that before and it was only as I turned the card over to scan it that I saw what I had written.

I wasn't all bad. I found this note too.

Some of you might remember Chatty Cathy from your childhood. Do you remember this commercial?



Although I have some Chatty Cathys in my doll collection I never played with her as a child. She came out in 1959 and by then I was interested in boys...not dolls. This week I was in an antique store and spotted an old tin stove for my Chattys. It had been $40, but was marked down to $20. I know I've posted a picture of this doll in her pink dress before, but I wanted to show off my new/old stove and she is wearing pink.

Jacking Up The House AKA The Constant Thrill of Home Ownership

I know this is going to seem strange to many of you, but today we had our house jacked up. Homes in this area are built on concrete slabs. Our soil is made up of mostly clay or "gumbo" as some call it. The soil expands and contracts with moisture and this eventually causes the slab to crack as it rises and falls. I've been told that this happens to approximately 50% of the homes sooner or later. I think it usually takes around 20 years or so for the cracks to appear, so new homes are safe for a while.

Our house needed to be jacked up again along the back. We have a lot of trees and they cause the soil to dry out even faster than normal. We're not about to cut trees down, so we have to have the house jacked up. During the summer we run soaker hoses around the perimeter of the house in hopes of keeping the soil from drying out under the slab. Unfortunately, last summer was very dry and it was a losing battle.

First they bring in jack hammers and open up any concrete. Then they dig holes next to where the piers hold up the slab. The piers were put in under the slab the first time the house was jacked up.

Then they position their jacks.

A man climbs in each hole and they jack up the house.

One of the men comes inside with a long level and keeps checking until the house is back where it belongs.

When they get done they take out their jacks and I believe it's then held up by concrete blocks. They fill in the holes, pour more concrete, and put the deck all back together again.

We knew the house needed to be jacked up because a couple of doors were sticking and some cracks opened up in the drywall. Within about five house everything was level again.

SPRING HAS SPRUNG

A couple of weeks ago we had an Arctic freeze and it got very, very cold here. In fact, it was in the 20's which is pretty unusual. Yesterday and today it's been in the 70's! I was out in the backyard moving some of my plants around and a couple of butterflies started flying around me. I was hoping they'd stay around long enough for me to run inside and get the camera. They did, and I was able to snap a couple of quick pictures.

They were bright yellow. That's one of them in the upper left hand corner of this picture.

And this is the two of them flying around. They almost look like leaves falling, so you'll have to take my word for it...they're butterflies.

You can see how my one plant got burned by the freeze. I covered all my potted plants with sheets, but some still managed to get burned.

I also took some pictures of my pecan tree because I could see where it's starting to bud. Unfortunately, I couldn't get close enough to get a good picture. I'll try again in a few weeks.

Today I was surprised to see some roses blooming down at the hospital. I'm going to try and remember to bring my camera tomorrow and get a picture of some pink roses for Pink Saturday.

It's supposed to get cold again in a few days. I think they said it would be in the 30's. Spring comes early here and I actually consider the end of February the beginning of Spring. That's when we get out and start working in the yard anyway.

SECOND TIME AROUND TUESDAY

This is the first time I've joined in with "Second Time Around Tuesday" at Diane's blog, "A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words." I hope I'm doing it correctly.

I found these little trading stamp boxes at two different antique shops. They look like they were probably made by the same company. I'm wondering how many different styles were made? These are the only two I've ever seen in my travels, but it's the beginning of my trading stamp box collection. The stamps and books in the boxes belonged to my mother. She had them stuffed in a desk drawer for years. I guess she was waiting for trading stamps to make a come back.

I remember as a child looking through the S & H Green Stamp catalog. There was a wide assortment of things to chose from. Mom would count up her books and we'd head over to the Green Stamp Store to do a little "shopping."

I think they're kind of cute and I have them hanging on a wall in my kitchen. I took this picture in the evening, so the lighting wasn't the greatest. (I'll try and do better next time.) :)

I'm wondering if anyone else collects these boxes?

Thanks Diane for letting me participate.

HOT DOG!

Hot dog...I did it! Did you notice? Check the side bar. I now have a blog button just like some of you. Tonight, I'm patting myself on the back. I looked at it as a challenge. I googled "blog button" and found numerous directions. I spent hours working on my little button and trying to get the darn thing to work. I wanted one with the scroll box underneath and that took a little extra time. I tried three different sets of directions and finally got it to work with the last one.

I don't really know why I wanted a blog button. I guess it helps me feel like I belong here. I'm now one of you! I read that it was a good idea to have a button if you were going to have a contest or some kind of give away. To be honest, I don't have anything planned. I'm really not all that creative. Hate to disappoint you. I'll think about doing something for my 1,000 post. That will help keep me motivated to blog for a while. Be sure to hang around so you don't miss anything. :)

This was a big accomplishment for me. I am not at all tech savvy. The VCR in the bedroom still doesn't have a working clock since Hurricane Ike came through. That's OK, I don't know how to tape anyway. By the way, I know about DVD's. It's a VCR/DVD player/recorder. I knew how to work the last one, but it went to VCR heaven and I've never been able to figure this one out.

When we got this computer it came with Windows Vista. I hated it. My ancient Adobe Photodeluxe wouldn't work with Vista and for almost a year I couldn't do anything with my photos. I didn't want another photo program because it had taken me forever to learn Photodeluxe with a Dummies book. Finally, my son took pity on me and came over and put Windows XP on this computer. I was in Photodeluxe heaven.

I'm keeping my current camera for as long as possible. As long as I don't drop this one I should be OK. I know how to work it...sorta. I'm hoping to take it to the grave with me.

And please say a prayer for the printer/scanner/copier. It's about due to die and I've finally mastered most of the features.

And I know my son rolls his eyes every time I ask him to add a phone number to my cell phone's directory. I have trouble with that too.

You'll never see me twigger, twiddle, or whatever it's called. No Facebook or anything similar. I'll just assume you're all my friends. I can only handle one thing at a time and this blog is it.

Please feel no obligation to take my blog button. I know how it is. After a while you get so much stuff on your blog there's little room for anything else. (And personally, I think a lot of stuff slows down the pages when they're loading.) I really just wanted to see if I could do it.

Today I conquered the blog button...tomorrow the VCR.

THE PROBLEM WE ALL LIVE WITH

Growing up in NJ my Dad would commute into the city for work. Part of his commute involved riding the train from Hoboken to Westwood where we lived. Often he picked up something to read on the train. I always waited to see if Dad had the latest issue of The Saturday Evening Post and if there was a Normal Rockwell painting on the cover.


Even as a young child I was fascinated with his work. I'd study every cover looking for the extra details he would include. I don't think I ever looked inside the magazine. I just enjoyed studying the cover and using my imagination to continue the story he was telling with his paintbrush.


As a child I always hated school. Most years I struggled through and by 1964 I was ready to graduate and be done with it. That was the year one of Norman Rockwell's most famous paintings appeared in Look Magazine. (By that time he had left The Saturday Evening Post for Look Magazine.) I still remember seeing a copy and feeling very sad for the little girl in the painting. It was called "The Problem We All Live With."

I saw all the anger and hatred on the television news, but this painting made an even greater impact on me. To me school was already bad enough. I couldn't even imagine going to school under these circumstances. How scared she must have been.

I love the way Rockwell caught the innocence of a child surrounded by hate. Many years ago, I ordered this print from the Norman Rockwell Museum and it now hangs in my entry way. Every morning when I come down the hall I see it. I've studied the details many times and it's a daily reminder of the horrors of hate. Now as a parent I've often wondered what it must have been like for the little girl's parents. They must have been terrified too.

Some years back I saw that little girl on Oprah. Of course, she's a grown woman today and her name is Ruby. She never actually met Norman Rockwell. The painting was based on her experience, but another child posed for Rockwell.

Today I went to You Tube to listen to Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream speech." The person that had uploaded the video said in the description that the comments area had been disabled due to hateful and racist remarks.

Over the years progress has been made, but sadly that kind of deep rooted hate still exists today. Fortunately, it exists on a smaller scale. It's been 47 years since that speech and we now have our first black American President. Today I'm hopeful that with future generations things will continue to improve.

HELP...my PINK Saturday post appears below this one

Just scroll down for today's PINK SATURDAY post which appears right below this one, but maybe you can help me today? Please read.

Some nice people a while back answered my plea for help with reading the Pink Saturday posts. Unfortunately, I don't remember how they told me to do it.

Right now I'm going to Beverly's blog and clicking on the Pink Saturday participants links...going to their blogs...and then backing up back into Beverly's blog. I know there's a much easier way to do it, but for the life of me I can't remember. PLEASE, PLEASE...someone post and tell me how they do it. I promise I'll print it out and keep it.

PINK SATURDAY

I haven't participated in Beverly's Pink Saturday for a while now. I guess you could say that "real life" got in the way, but I'm back now and ready to go!


I received a wonderful surprise in the mail this week from a doll list friend...and it was PINK! We met on a doll list for Vogue Ginny Doll collectors. She knows I haven't had a lot of time for dolls lately and so she sent this outfit to me and called it a "Ginny Hug." What a wonderful surprise! Cathy crocheted this adorable dress (and pants) and she does beautiful work. I was thrilled and decided my modern day AA repro Ginny would be the lucky recipient.



Now doesn't she look cute? Can you see why this gift brought a smile to my face? Now Ginny is saying, "Happy Pink Saturday" to all of you!

For a list of this week's participants and for information on how you can join in the fun just click on the Pink Saturday logo on my sidebar.

INTRODUCING GRACE

I said when I started blogging that I would eventually write something about each of our pets. This post is long overdue.

Grace is our "senior cat" and is now a little over 15 years old. I first saw her in the neighborhood following some kids down the street as they walked home from the school bus stop. She was a kitten and was happily running along after them.

I might have seen her once or twice after that, but on the night before Thanksgiving 1994 one of my son's friends came to the front door and found her sleeping on our scarecrow's lap. (I had the front porch decorated with a large stuffed scarecrow sitting on a bale of hay.) It was cold that night and so he brought her inside. She took one look at our dog and the two of them became instant friends and started playing. She made herself right at home.

My husband went around the neighborhood trying to find out who owned her and we were told she belonged to some people on the next block who had gone away for Thanksgiving. When they returned he was told that she had been hanging around for a while and they had been feeding her, but she didn't really belong to them and they didn't want to keep her. So, she found her forever home with us. Since she arrived the night before Thanksgiving, and grace always comes before Thanksgiving dinner, we named her Grace.

She and our dog Shelby were good friends until we lost Shelby to old age.

When she was younger she enjoyed sitting in the warm clothes dryer.

And every year I follow the Peregrine Falcons online that nest on the top of an office building in Jersey City, NJ. Grace thinks it's fun too.

She's just a real sweet cat and I hope she's with us for a long, long time.

BREAKFAST WITH THE GINNY DOLLS

I thought it was time to put up some more picture of my dolls. All dolls in these pictures were made by the Vogue Doll Company. All except one are vintage dolls from the 1950's. The vintage Jill Doll is supposed to be Ginny's teenage sister, but in my doll world she's the mom. She's wearing an outfit that an eBay seamstress made. We're pretending one of the Ginnys had a sleep over and Jill is cooking breakfast the next morning. The three Ginnys at the table are vintage dolls and they are wearing vintage pajamas in three different colors...blue check, red check, and pink check. The doll sitting on the floor is a vintage reproduction made by today's Vogue Doll Company and she's wearing a pair of pajamas that were made for the reproduction dolls.


I bought the oatmeal at a doll show and some of the food is Rement and some is Barbie. I made the spilled milk and the glasses of milk.


This picture shows the oatmeal cooking on the stove and the Quaker Oats container. I bought the oatmeal in the bowls, the pot with the oatmeal cooking, and the Quaker Oats container as a set.

TONIGHT I'M SHARING VERY GOOD NEWS!!

Reid had his follow-up appointment at MD Anderson this afternoon and received very good news!!!

The PET Scan that was done yesterday shows no cancer. As they say in the cancer business...it didn't light up.

He is in remission. The Physicians Assistant called it remarkable.

We were hoping for good news today, but didn't expect it to be this good!

He does have to finish the remaining treatments (4 more months), but he's now 1/3 of the way done. The ugly mass in his chest has shrunk. It's still there, but is expected to shrink further with the rest of the treatments. The cancer part of the mass is gone.

I want to thank everyone who has been with us so far on this cancer journey, but most of all I want to thank and praise God.

All of our lives have changed in the last couple of months, but more so for Reid than anyone else. We did not know our son as well as we thought we did and were proud and amazed at what we saw. I believe we have all changed for the better. I now pray that the cancer stays in remission and that Reid can soon go on with the rest of his life. Rehab continues and things are really looking up.

It's difficult for me to express how I really feel tonight. I'm not a writer and the words don't flow easily, so I'll simply say that I'm happy to the point of tears.

Of course, tomorrow is chemo day again. For Reid that means another week of feeling yucky, but perhaps now it will be just a little bit easier to bare.

Once again, I thank you all for your warm thoughts and prayers.

(I already published this once. It looked fine when I read my preview, but when I published the post the double spacing between some of my paragraphs was gone. I pulled it to edit, but my preview still looks fine. I have no idea what it will look like this time, so use your imagination. There is double spacing between the paragraphs.) :)

Playing Doctor

This is going to be a busy week and I might not get to post again for a while. Tomorrow is the only day Reid doesn't have to be down at MD Anderson. On Thursday, January 7th he needs to be there at 7:00 AM and has appointments all day. His last is at 3:00 PM. I don't know what all of the stuff is on his schedule, but it reads like this:


7:00 AM Blood/Specimen Collection
8:45 AM Chest, PA & LAT
9:00 AM Check-in/Prep for CT Exam
11:00 CT Scan, Lymphoma Screening
1:00 PM Pet Prep-Do not east for 6 hours
1:30 PM PetCT Injection & Localization
3:00 Pet Lymphoma Restage



I believe the Lymphoma Restage at 3:00 is the most important one. This is the Pet Scan where they'll be able to see how much progress is being made with the chemo treatments.

I'm no doctor, although I do play one at my computer screen. :)

Here's the image of a normal chest X-ray that I found out on the Internet.

And this is Reid's X-ray taken on October 13, 2009.

You don't have to graduate from medical school to know that you're looking at an abnormal chest X-ray. In fact, according to the doctor's notes (a real doctor...not me) you're looking at an 18.6 cm anterior mediastinal mass. The mass pushing on his lungs is what caused the dry cough that was originally thought to be bronchitis. Reid still has the cough, but it's not as bad as it was when this X-ray was taken. He also still has a weak voice. He's unable to speak loudly or shout and this is also due to the mass.

Now, here is the good news. From what I've read about Hodgkin's Lymphoma most of that mass is not cancer. The cancer is just a very small part of the mass. The rest is inflammation and other cells.

The chemo should be shrinking the whole darn ugly thing. Hopefully, when he has his doctor's appointment on January 8th we'll be told that the mass is significantly smaller.

This is such a busy week and yesterday I realized I was coming down with a cold. In spite of almost continuous hand washing and hand sanitizing (Howie Mandell would be so proud of me) I've somehow caught a cold. Now I'm hoping Reid doesn't catch it. I don't know what would happen if he did, but I'm assuming it would delay this week's chemo. Rats! I don't even remember when I last had a cold, but it was probably some time last winter. It's not a bad cold and hopefully it will be gone before he or my husband have a chance to catch it.

I'd better get busy. The cats want to be fed and they're walking across the keyboard and standing in front of the computer screen to get my attention.

Thank you for your warm thoughts and prayers on Reid's behalf.

IS YOUR GLASS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL?

We all have a tendency once in a while to look in the wrong direction. You know, to see our glass as half empty instead of half full.


Last October our son, Reid was in the Neuro Science Intensive Care Unit at a nearby hospital. He had a large mass in his chest and a tumor in his spinal canal. I was devastated. They wanted to operate as quickly as possible because he was already numb from the chest down from the spinal cord compression. In fact, the surgery was scheduled and then canceled by the anesthesiologist due to concerns that when they turned him over to operate the mass in his chest cavity would make it impossible for them to keep him breathing during surgery. Finally, a couple of days later it was decided that benefit outweighed risk and they had to get the tumor out before he lost more feeling in his body. Surgery went forward successfully with a lot of extra care by anesthesiology.


During that time I would arrive in intensive care and walk back to Reid's room with a heavy heart. There was still no diagnosis, but we knew that cancer was a very real possibility. Reid was often taken out of his room for various tests and procedures and observed the patients in other rooms. One day when I arrived he told me that he had decided he was probably the luckiest person in intensive care. I was shocked, but I think I recovered before he noticed. Lucky? Numb from the chest down with a spinal canal tumor and mass of unknown origin didn't exactly sound very lucky to me, but I hadn't been paying too much attention to the other patients either. He had been, and when I looked around I saw what he saw. There were people on ventilators, people obviously recovering from head injuries or brain surgery, and people totally unresponsive. Perhaps he was correct, but the most important thing was that he saw himself as lucky in the middle of a crisis. He could have been drowning in self pity, but he chose to look in another direction instead. His glass was half full.


He's now completed two rounds of chemo (4 treatments) and I asked him this past week if he ever felt sorry for himself. Did he ever think why me? Chemo is certainly no fun. He usually ends up feeling crappy for a week afterwards and has at least four more rounds to go. And along with the chemo there's the risk of complications down the road. He will likely have radiation after the chemo. He told me no, not since the very first day at the emergency clinic when he realized that something was seriously wrong. After that he just concerned himself with getting well. He says he knows there are people a lot worse off than him. I truly believe that his "glass half full" attitude will take him far in the coming year.



In the year 2010 may all our glasses be half full!