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Here's the first layer of a new art journal spread. Not sure where it will go from here but it felt good to loosen up and play with color just now.
I'm off to pick the kids up from school and then I have a meeting to attend later tonight, so I won't get to play more on this page until tomorrow.
Whew! The past two weeks have been somewhat of a challenge. Oh there were some great moments and not every day was a struggle. I know that there are many people going through much harder times. These last few weeks I just haven't been able to be here as I had planned. I haven't even started to think about or plan things I would share here. I'm hoping that with the start of today there will be a fresh start.
There have been some issues with my precious crew - the people I love more than anything... both little and big. The heath of my two boys (little and hubby) has been at the forefront and then just regular growing pains of parenting and protecting/standing up for other little. I had been making excuses some coaches and explaining their process to my daughter (for the last 5 months) and last week it just came time to stand up for my *daughter* instead and make some changes for the better for her. That involved a switching of schedules, some phone calls to make some new things happen for her, which I know she is going to enjoy so much more than what she had been doing previously. I just don't get why some adults get into coaching if they can't be supportive, motiviating, forces for good. It's another reminder of how rare and unique true leaders are. I felt like we were letting some people down in the process of this change (our current carpool sitatuon, though I hear that's even going to work out now, thankfully) but, in the end, when something's doing more harm than good, it's time for some change.
I took my son to a very well-respected ENT in the area (Hopkins was next on my list as he has been having a tough time these past few months). We are currently patients of this practice but it's always such a wait to see this specific doctor but the time had come and we couldn't just see someone else. We needed his expertise. I feel like we keep doing the same thing and the results are getting less and less what we're desiring. As if things aren't as effective as they used to and I thought that there had to be another answer. After getting an "emergency appointment" and having it switched one us, sinus surgery was suggested, as was talking with both the allergy unit and the immunology unit at Hopkins. I felt relieved that the doctor was very confident in having performed many sinus surgeries on young children. The problem my husband and I both have with it is the risks. Every surgery has risks. Sure. But we would never be able to live with ourselves if we had put our 7-year-old through this surgery (another surgery) and one of the risks came to be. Since young kids have such small skulls, everything is very close together. While doing sinus surgery, the doctor is extremely close to the eyes and the brain. He warned us of this and mentioned there is risk of blindness and brain damage. What? what? WHAT?! My husband and I both took some time together, and separately, to process and think about this and we both came to the conclusion that we don't want to go the surgery route, with the known risks. We are going to keep him on antibiotics for the winter as we have been and use another option for clearing out his sinuses that the doctor gave us as something new to try the next time he has congestion (we already do the sinus irrigation - with distilled water, after hearing about scary bacteria in regular water and the damage that can do). Since the immunology nurse that I spoke with at Hopkins said that many young kids grow out of this (this being the effects of having a mannose binding lectin deficiency, which causes frequent sinus, ear, and pulminary infections, of which there is no treatment), our logic is that if this is still an issue down the road, we hope by then he will have grown into his teens when his anatomy would favor a more successful outcome without so much risk as there will be more room between the different components of the skull.
Meanwhile, a couple of Mike's internal shoulder stitches from his December shoulder reconstruction became infected and there was a chance the doctor was going to need to do surgery AGAIN to get out the stitches causing the infection (um, yikes!) but first he put him on some antibiotics. The antibiotics seemed to be doing the trick but then Mike started not feeling well. We thought it was a stomach virus because he was experiecing nausea but a few days later when the hives broke out we knew otherwise. We started him on lots of Benadryl. He was in bed all day Sunday. Literally. All. Day. He didn't want anything to drink. He didn't want anything to eat. The hives proceeded to get worse. I kept waking him to see if he wanted any food or water in a deceptive plot to see how his breathing was. His primary care doctor suggested 50mg of Benadryl so it's no wonder he could barely lift his head. One of those normally just wipes you out but he needed to take two. Then after 9pm, the hives were even worse, which didn't seem possible, and he started having difficulty breathing so I took him to the ER. A HUGE thank you to our cousin, Erik, for coming over on no notice to be at the house for the kids in case they woke up and needed anything. At the ER they gave Mike epinephrine, steroids, a variety of stronger antihistamines...etc. and his breathing and heart rate stabilized so after some monitoring they were able to release him and we came home. Phew! He's doing much better today and is even up at his desk doing work. I didn't think that was going to be possible since he was close to unconscious yesterday but the combinations of medicine that they have him on are **working**... a little more slowly than Mike would like, but still they are WORKING! Thankfully!!
So this week is about trying to get everyone healthy and happy and to get back into our groove. I'm going to be bold and declare this week a fresh start. This week will be the start of a new set of yoga sessions that I'm teaching and it marks some business expansion (yay!) in that I've added another day for yoga classes (now I am offering classes on Tuesday AND Friday mornings) because some of my students asked if I'd consider adding anither class because they wanted to take classes twice a week (I have awesome students!). At first I was resistent to the change... sometimes change is hard - especially when so many other balls are up in the air - but when things settled I was able to see that adding a Friday class would be perfect! Now I'm so happy to be able to offer this additional day and share the benefits of yoga with more people while still keeping class sizes small.
GETTING THE GROOVE BACK
This is my Project Life spread for the week beginning December 11, 2011: Ryan doing a basketball drill, holiday goodies with a new pacjaging design, the kids walking together, Mike wearing the Iceman as a part of his rehab, an art journal entry, some shipping supplies I received (now I can sell and ship art prints!! YAY!)
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Click here to see more of my Project Life pages.
Project Life is a versatile album kit that comes with everything you need to for a fun life-documentation project in which the whole family can get involved. For more information about using and customizing Project Life visit Becky Higgin's website. You can purchase it from Amazon.com.
This is my Project Life spread for the week beginning December 4, 2011: participating in my first art show, the crayon cakes that we baked up with those broken bits of crayon, Mike's shoulder reconstruction surgery, Ryan starting his basketball league, homemade baked holiday goodies, working in my sketchbook
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Click here to see more of my Project Life pages.
Project Life is a versatile album kit that comes with everything you need to for a fun life-documentation project in which the whole family can get involved. For more information about using and customizing Project Life visit Becky Higgin's website. You can purchase it from Amazon.com.
Some doodles from my sketchbook. Some are filled with color, some still await their watercolor bath... pages like this are perfect to bring along with me when I'm on-the-go. It's like having my own custom-made coloring book.
I'm really excited to share a new project that I have in the works. Starting in February I'll be teaching a kids yoga class on Tuesdays after school at the local elementary school once a week. Sign-up for the upcoming 7-week session starts today (and I just got finished printing out the flyers and putting them in the teacher's mailboxes for distribution). Class will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis and I'm limiting class size to 12 for this first session due to the room that we are holding it in. We'll see how it goes with this many and then open it up, if we are able to, for future sessions.
My adult classes are growing as well, as my current students asked if I'd be willing to add another day of classes so they could come twice a week. So good things are going on over here! I'm trying to manage growth in a sustainable way and I need to find/make some space in my schedule and may need to look into an additional space outside of my home so that I can have classes for more than 3-5 people. I've been resistant to doing this so far because it's nice (and convenient) to be able to have it my home so far but we're definitely close to approaching a space limitation with my current house configuration. It's definitely a good issue to have, don't get me wrong, it's just now I have to do some thinking on *how* I want this to grow and will be adding some items to my "to do" list. It's nice to be able to think about the possibilities of this and other heath and wellness classes that I'd like to offer including cooking classes/healthy eating workshops.
Okay, now that I've shared the good news, I need to go and do my workout for the day (it's a cardio day)... kickboxing here I come!
This is my Project Life spread for the week beginning November 27, 2011: Ryan doing his and Jessi's laundry for the week, visiting Linky's grave on her birthday, the first frost of the season, a note from Ryan, a map that our friends brought back for us (along with some dark chocolate) from their recent trip to Hershey where they did a hot cocoa tasting, everyday stuff like getting new art supplies and Ryan putting them where he wanted them, my freezer cleanout, Jessi going through the crayon bin taking out the small, broken crayon bits.
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Click here to see more of my Project Life pages.
Project Life is a versatile album kit that comes with everything you need to for a fun life-documentation project in which the whole family can get involved. For more information about using and customizing Project Life visit Becky Higgin's website. You can purchase it from Amazon.com.
This is my Project Life spread for the week beginning November 20, 2011 which includes preparing for Thanksgiving, some new throw pillows I made for the sunroom, and more of the Pokemon craze (did I tell you that Mike and I have our own decks so that we can play with the kids... I think I was the first one hooked out of all of us! LOL!).
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Click here to see more of my Project Life pages.
Project Life is a versatile album kit that comes with everything you need to for a fun life-documentation project in which the whole family can get involved. For more information about using and customizing Project Life visit Becky Higgin's website. You can purchase it from Amazon.com.
This is my Project Life spread for the week beginning November 13, 2011 which highlights the Pokemon craze that came over our house, my first painting in a long time, J's Writer's Workshop class presentation, and some everyday photos (art time together in my studio, a photo of our hands which is an ongoing photography project that I do from time-to-time that, when finished, will show the passage of time through our hands, Ryan playing, etc.)
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Click here to see more of my Project Life pages.
Project Life is a versatile album kit that comes with everything you need to for a fun life-documentation project in which the whole family can get involved. For more information about using and customizing Project Life visit Becky Higgin's website. You can purchase it from Amazon.com.
