Good news!

 

Good news!!!! Since I've been awake-ish since 3 today, my partner and I went for coffee at a neat new place in Monett. A very sweet couple in front of us paid for our coffee, which is a huge blessing for the day!

A bit scattered (and depressing) update

 Hi everyone, just wanted to pop in with a quick update. Things got incredibly beserck in end of August-beginning of October. Truthfully, they got a little crazy before, but it all worsened then. School became busier, and there started to be rumors that there were going to be changes at work that would impact me greatly, as well as everyone else. 

  Long story short, we found out that my grandparents had been in the hospital for approximately 3-5 days (Grandma B. went first, then Grandpa followed) for Covid. They remained hospitalized for a few weeks before Grandpa went on comfort care, ironically the week after I learned about it in class. Grandpa passed shortly thereafter; Grandma went comfort care the day fter Grandpa's funeral (Monday) and died the same day. I wish I could say that the hospital they were at took great care of them, and did their best to keep them comfortable in their last days, but sadly I cannot. The family had to pitch fits just to get them pain medication once in a while; normally, with comfort care, the goal is to keep them as painfree and peaceful as possible, but not at this hospital. There were a couple of great nurses that did attempt to do so, but sadly that was the minority, not the overall experience. I might write more about that later; I'm not really sure at this point. 

  Thankfully, my boss was amazing with all of this, as were my classmates and instructor. All three made a point to check on me frequently, and are probably the only reason I did not end up on a 96 hour hold. I was suppose to have a exam over comfort care and cancer the day after Grandma passed, but thankfully my instructor allowed me to push it off until the next Monday. I got a little misty-eyed taking it then, there was no way I was going to make it through it that Wednesday without crying, so I am incredibly thankful for that. 

  The day we first went to their house after they had both passed was a hard one. Family had came in from out of state, and an uncle occasionally lived them, so it did not look like their house. That combined with them not being there hit me hard. Thankfully, the bathroom was open, so I hid in there to a take a moment; I only say this to say that a classmate, a fellow stitcher, had the misfortune of texting me at that time and got stuck having to talk me out of the bathroom, via text. The poor guy was so sweet to do so!

  Unfortunately, that same day, on the way home I found out that I will need to have a second job by the end of December. The board decided to switch the full timers to a 48-96 shift (not safe), and make the 12 hour truck a full time truck (probably needed long before now). While the 12 hour becoming a fully-staffed truck that will run 24/7 is best for the district, it means that all of the PRNers, including myself, will likely not have many, or any, hours once it is staffed with full time personnel. My boss very sweetly did not want to tell me this until after my Grandma's funeral, but a coworker told me when I asked what the meeting they wanted all staff to go (never a good thing) to was about. I also found out that she was going through her own rough time; the board decided that they would not be renewing her contract (we basically rent her from a large hospital/ambulance service in the vicinity). There are a lot of unknowns, and she is required to train her temporary replacement through the end of the year, which I feel is insult to injury, but she is doing amazing with her attitude about it. Fortunately, the way her contract was set up, she still has a job at the company she is from. 

  Things are going a lot better now. I'm still dealing with all of the normal emotions of grief. My Mom is having the hardest time; losing both parents so fast is something I cannot even try to imagine. She appears to be doing a little better now, but prayers for her would be appreciated.

  On a more positive note, while my grades have slipped some, I am not in immediate danger of failing out of nursing school! We have to keep our grades at a 74 or 76%; I forget which. While a bad test score could drop my grade dramatically, it tentatively looks like I just might be in the portion moving on! 

  Sorry this was not a more uplifting update. I had to be up at 3 to come in early for a coworker, so I'm not in a sunshiney mood just yet. I'll try to post something happier soon. To be honest, I knew this would be a harder post to write, which is why I have not updated in a long time. I hope that all of you and your loved ones are doing amazing; please, tell me what you have been up to!

  Happy Stitching,

  Emmy

Nala's Self Image

  This is what Nala thinks she looks like:

And this is what Nala actually looks like:

   She has a very healthy self-image; she is always shocked and angered whenever I pick her up. She's bigger than me and could eat me for an afternoon snack if she wanted to, so it always shocks her whenever I hold in just my hands. :)

Me too, cat, me too

  Perchance, do any of you have a Emmy-sized box? Granted, my problems are not that bad. They're more annoyances that my dramatic brain blows ridiculously out of proportion. Then cue the anxiety! That said, I would appreciate prayers about some work stuff. My boss has been incredible about working with what little availability I can give her, but the board may be making some changes. One of the changes would be making the 12 hour truck into a full time truck. For the district's sake, it needs to be, but it would likely be a full-time crew then. Which would stink for all of PRNers. And would likely mean that I would need to pick up a second job somewhere. Which would totally not be the end of the world, but I don't want to spend the time and hassle of looking, applying, and learning a new job, especially while in school. I'd rather procrastinate on that until I'm a RN and can procastinate no longer! It will likely be a month or two until they decide, so prayers for my sanity would be appreciated. After all, youns know just how much I just  love the unknowns of life. 😒 Oh well, life would be boring without them! 

 

    Poor Ladybug was really feeling the stress yesterday. Mom has been sick since Sunday, and Lady is very much a Marmoo's girl, and has been keeping a close eye on Mom almost 24/7. Plus, my normal state is a sliding scale of stress, and she does her best to keep me grounded. But that poor girl hit her max yesterday! She was freaked out, did not want left alone, and refused to leave my bedroom for almost all of the day. She would peek her head out of the door, get scared, and immediately run and hid in my room. I ended up turning the lights off (when I wasn't in there studying), keeping the doors closed, and turning the sounds on my alarm clock on to the river setting to get her to calm down. Approximately 30 seconds after starting that, she moved from the foot of the bed to the pillow (the brat!), and fell asleep. She stayed like that for a very, very long time and awoke her normal chill self. 

  School has been going good overall. My instructor and classmates are absolutely incredible!!!! I have made friends that I am much closer to than people that I have known for many years! :o  & :) I did fail a pharm test, which was weird, because I don't fail tests. That said, I was super stressed about work, did NOT sleep much that week, and did not study for it much at all. I did do amazing on the Peds HESI that we took that day though. The HESI is an indicator of how likely you are to pass NCLEX (the test that must be passed to become a nurse); doing well on it was nice, but I would have been given a second chance since this was our first time taking a HESI. I shoulda known that I'd choose the wrong test to fail! ;) On the upside, it was a nursing school fail, not a normal fail- for nursing school, it has to be a 75% or higher to pass; I got a 74%. So I'm just a partial idiot at least! 

  I don't really have much else to tell youns. I have no clue when I will stitch again; I am going to have to make time though, my sanity is wearing thin, and I haven't read a book for fun in a long time, so I need to decompress somehow soon. At work on Monday, we were dispatched for a male with dementia "acting crazy" that killed his dog. I really, really did not want to run on him. Fido-murderers are not my favorite. Plus, if he hit the point of killing his own dog, then there is precious little to keep him from wanting to kill me, especially since I am incredibly annoying. (I am told this frequently by patients. And other people.) Thankfully, we were cancelled while staging in the area. I do not know if Fido lived or not. Hopefully, he was not murdered, and it was all a big misunderstanding. 

  That's it, folks! I hope things are going amazing for you. Feel free to tell me all about it! 

  Happy Stitching (please stitch extra on my behalf!)!

  Emmy 

Hello, Friends!

   I truly thought that I would do a much better job of keeping in touch you, but we can see how that has gone. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that none of you are surprised; while we have never met in person that I know of, you seem to understand me better than I understand myself. I'm glad someone does at least!

  School has been busy, but good. My nursing professor is super cool, and my classmates are like a second family. When I got into EMS, everyone talked about how your coworkers are your family- they really aren't. A select few, sure, but not everyone like "they" said. But this class? Very much so. The only time I have felt so safe before is with select family, friends, and youns. Its a weird, but really nice feeling. Like being cuddled in a fuzzy blanket with a cat on your lap while watching it snow outside. I'll try to post occasional updates of random things that I have learned- that counts as studying, right?

  My house is coming along. Dad (bless his heart) has gotten almost all of the electricity ran inside the house, and the plumber finished almost all of hte inside stuff week before last. I'm hoping he shows up this week to finish tying in the water line and sewage (I really can't decide which one of those is more important). If all goes well, I can hopefully hire someone to do the insulation (I'm going with blow-in foam insulation) soon! Between you and me, I seriously hoping that I can move in over Christmas break. I have no idea if that is realistic, but that would be so amazing!!!!!!!

  On a similar note, does anyone know how to find a handyman, or whatever the proper term is nowadays? I am not really  able to help with school, and it isn't fair to ask my Dad to keep working on my house. If I can hire a handyman to take care of the necessitites, that will move up the move in date, and my Dad might actually let himself sleep more than 5 hours. 

  I'm very needy today; I have yet another question for you, my friends. A good friend from my class got married on Saturday. Does anyone know of any affordible embroidery or cross stitch kits for a newly married couple that would be a quick stitch? All suggestions would be appreciated!

  We had an interesting call a little bit ago. A young man was moving trash when he stuck his arm through an old window, resulting in a nice laceration to his R wrist. He had a makeshift tourniquet on, and the officer had placed his tourniquet on. We took the makeshift one off, and placed another one of ours. He ended up getting TXA, and brought to Springfield. A nice bit of excitement for the day!

  Whelp, I guess thats all she wrote! I hope youns have an amazing Labor Day (I forgot that was today until I got to work- time and half, woo hoo!!!!), and I look forward to hearing what you have been up to!

  Happy Stitching!

  Emmy

I'm struggle-bussing it

  I cannot seem to get my act together here lately. Normally, I have routines, so I can just do stuff on autopilot, and get it done. But all of my routines have flown out of the window with school and then dropping to PRN at work. I am in a world of confusion right now. Here are some of the more interesting examples:

  Shift before last, we went to a call with a young lady that had been abused by her boyfriend and drove several hours to get away. 3 police officers were on scene as well as the pt, my partner, and myself. We checked her VS, confirmed that she did not want to go to the hospital repeatedly (I would have felt better if she would have), and then returned to the station. After making it back to the station, I went to use the restroom, where I found out that I likely ran the entire call with a toilet paper tail. And nobody thought to tell me! My partner was adamant that he had not noticed any such thing- he is a man, so I do believe him on that one! 

  The next shift, my truck was dead-dead at the get go. In all of my company's wisdom, we continued to "run" out of it- at least once it was charged enough to start. We did go and run errands then- it was charged enough to drive, but nothing else worked. No headlights, no wee-woos, no obnoxious siren, zip, zilch, nada. Oh well, it worked out. Thankfully the air ride was working by the time we got a pt. They would have been very angry if not!

  Now onto the shift following that! I normally put my food that goes in the fridge in a bag, then put the bag in the fridge. If you feel this is unnecessasry, you are absolutely right, but some jerk kept stealing my cheese sticks, and I don't know who it was, so I never found out who to stab with my trauma shears (putting the trauma in trauma shears, one cheese stick thief at a time!). It was either stab everybody (felt a little excessive...) or try something else. Thankfully, the bag thing worked. Well, that and being very vocal that I would absolutely stab a cheese stick thief, if I ever found out who it was. Like, come on, who steals a girl's cheese stick?!? Take the yogurt or something, but not the cheese, and not my dessert!!!!  Anyway, now that I have had my little tantrum, I grabbed my bag, and headed off to work. After getting to work, I went to put it in the fridge when I realized, to my horror, that I did remember my bag, but I did not remember to put anything in it!!!!!!

  

  My last shift, we got off after 11:30... we were suppose to be off at 9. We were already on a late call when they made us go to a wreck. I felt really dumb because all of these people kept saying my name, and when I answered, they looked at me like I was really stupid. I was starting to wonder if I was having a stroke or something (my BP was absolutely high enough at that point) and just speaking gibberish. At one point, a firefighter said, "Emily is a patient, too." I'm thinking to myself, "No, I'm calm. Why is he saying that?" (We say that whenever someone gets really worked up over something. Some EMTs, Paramedics, etc have literally had heart attacks on the truck during a call from all of the cumulative stress of the job.)  Turns out, my pt and I share the same first name! She was the second one of the day with my name. Usually, I don't share a name with my patients, just classmates.

  As you can see, life has been very, very entertaining of late. Only one thing was embarassing (the TP tail) for about 30 seconds. It is now my favorite story to tell everyone! 

Only in Nursing school....

 Does someone tell you to "go look at that butt" and you rush with everyone else to do exactly that. Kinda weird, right? Exactly what our professor said, and us medic RN students feel like we are drowning with most of the assignments- looking at a rubber butt with an example of a pressure wound is absolutely easy, and something we were eager to do as a result!

 In other news, here is my house:

  It needs painted, another window, and nothing inside is done except for the stairs and the bathroom framing. Still, a ton of progress that the contractor did in a few days!!!!!!! We will be doing the rest (hopefully), so it will be awhile before there is more progress to report. 

  I am super behind on stuff for my RN bridge class, as well as my Old Testament History. For nursing, our instructor is really cool, as are my classmates. Updates will likely be sporadic, but know that I think of you often!!!! 

  Happy Stitching/Studying! 

 Emmy

I have so much to tell you!

 But this is on my phone, so I may not get it all told. First and foremost, happy belated birthday to Robin!!!! 

  Things have been absolutely ridiculous around here. Grandpa was in the hospital with confusion and an infection that sounds like sepsis. Getting updates was incredibly difficult, and Covid (I really, really hate that word anymore) restrictions kept us from going there. My uncle that was up there is not able to relay info as well, and likes to add his own twist on things. At one point, Grandpa thought that he was at morgue being embalmed. He is, praise the Lord, back home and doing much better now. There are some lasting effects, but I really thought we were going to lose him, so the deficits are not worst case scenario by any means. 

  I was sick on the 14th, so I had Friday off of work. I really think I had just wore myself down too much between work, school, and everything else, especially since last week was finals. Thankfully, I am much better now, and at work now. I also survived our mandatory training, as did several apprehensive new hires. :)

  So, the being too busy and getting sick thing just confirms the decision I’m about to tell. I spoke to my boss a week or 2 back, and I am stopping to part time in late June. It was a hard, and frankly scary decision, but I feel more of a peace about this decision than I have felt in a very, very long time. I’m working on figuring out insurance and such now. Wish my luck, and a steady supply of Tylenol for that headache!

  My house is on hold at the moment. I’m working on figuring out the finances to hire the gent that gave me a quote. If I can get that figured out, we will go on ahead. If not, I will likely wait until sometime after next May to revisit that dream. 

  Since I was sick, I slept a ton(!!), watched some movies, and squeezed some stitching in!!!

  Most of the rump is done now, but I forgot to take a picture of that. I do believe Smokey has missed me stitching as much as I have! 

  The children are well. 

  Smokey was quite thrilled to have a bow tie on, and it appears to have cured his case of the grumpies and growlies. Lady hated it when I trimmed her claws and put her new caps on. You would have thought I was cutting her paws off the way she carried on!!! But, she stuck both paws out a few minutes after we finished to show off her bling! 

  I should be starting class on June 2, Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise. I’ll be using my vacation throughout June,  so that will take some stress off. I must say, the decision to go part time has made it much easier to breath, and I don’t feel like I’m drowning as much. Concerned about finances and such, but God led me down this path, so He will provide. 

  What have youns been up to? I’ve missed our visits!!!!

 Happy Stitching!

 Emmy

Slow Driver Update

   Since I have the misfortune of being awake at this time, and new guy drives slow from Big City,  I figured it would be a good time to pop in with an update. Things have been ridiculously busy. Between my classes and how incredibly busy we’ve been at work, there hasn’t really been time for much else, including sleep. Today we arrived at work and was told that there was a transfer going to St. Louis. The transfer went well, but was, unsurprisingly, long. 

  School has been annoying, but decent. Even though I’m just at half time, I’m having to spend pretty close to the amount of time studying I spent in medic class (an 18 credit hr class per semester). For two 3 hour classes, that is a bit ridiculous, especially since one is just a refresher. Still, it is what it is. I’m not sure if it’s the way the classes are set up, or my instructor. 

  The kitties are well. Ladybug’s paw is slowly getting better. I know they are just playing, but when Smokey bites her paw, he doesn’t realize he’s biting hard enough to hurt her. Do youns have any ideas on how to get him to stop playing so rough?

  Banjo wanted me to tell youns that he got two- TWO!!!!- new squeaky toys!!!!!!! I’m pretty sure Kirst gave the second one to Sadie, but he thinks it’s his  apparently, the one I gave him is not enough. Daisy says that life is good, even if her brothers are annoying  

  I don’t have anything to report on the stitching front. On the nursing school front, I have almost everything ready. My uniforms are ordered, my school- approved shoes arrived (they’re picky), most of my vaccine stuff is turned in (apparently they just gave me a plain tetanus shot a few years ago, so I need a TDaP booster, and I can’t access my TB test results on the pt portal for some reason, so I have to get that figured out). Let’s see, what else.... I think the only other thing I’ll need is a flu shot this fall. Normally, I skip them, but it’s required for clinicals. 

  I’m looking into something for the near future. I don’t have it all sorted out yet, although I have made up my mind, so I’ll wait to tell youns about it once it’s all sorted out. That said, I would appreciate sure prayer that I make the right decisions, and that all goes smoothly with it. 

  My coworker that was going to build my house had a schedule change and isn’t able to now. The good news is, there’s a guy that will be giving me a quote soon. I’m not sure when he will be able to start it, but he was the first one that didn’t say he was too busy, and he actually came out in a few days to look over everything, so that is progress at least!!!!

  Sorry I don’t have anything interesting to report. Hopefully that will change soon. Until then, youns take care, and please tell what you have been up to! 

  Happy Stitching!

 Emmy

P. S. I’ll try to include pictures in a post soon.  Also, it’s not terrible the new guy is driving slow; he’s working in giving a smooth ride, which is good, but ambulances go much faster than fire trucks, for various reasons.  He will get the fast and the smooth combined soon, I’m sure  

Being an Adult

     Do you know what one of my favorite things of being an adult is? Eating iced animal crackers. As a kid, you have to hope your Mom bought some. Then, you have to ask first, at least when you're a little gal. But as an adult? I can eat them whenever I want, regardless of what anyone else thinks or says. As long as I remember to buy them (I did), and remember to pack them (I did), I can! Take today. Today, I forgot to bring to bring my own supper, but I have my animal crackers, by George! I mean, take this guy? Is it a lion? I have no clue. But what I can tell you, is that he was delicious! 

  Being an adult is pretty all right, at least at times. (Bill paying time, not so much.)

When the sun won't shine...

 Make your own sunlight! At least, that is what Ladybug decided to do! I hope you all have a wonderful, relaxing Sunday!

  Happy Stitching!

 Emmy

 

It has been an entertaining time of late

   It really has been. We just got back from a call for a 3 year old with his foot stuck in his bicycle. He had been freed by the time we arrived. He was quite proud of the firefighter's helmet the fire dept gave him, as well as the animal my partner made for him out of gloves. His two sisters received the same, and were just as excited. 

  Earlier, we got very lost while looking for an address in a neighboring ambulance service's area. They have been running short-handed, so we have had much more mutual aid calls than normal. Thankfully, the call was not an emergency. The family was irritated; the road sign was missing. Which is common around here, and makes our job much, much harder if GPS does not work (it didn't). On the upside, I got take a quick picture of this barn quilt while we tried to get our bearings. 

   This morning, the sunrise was gorgeous!

  School has been going well. This was the first week with my A&P refresher, and it was not bad. Sometimes first weeks are deceiving, but I am hopeful that this is not one of those times. Its getting closer to time for me to start the RN bridge!

  Smokey and Ladybug have been extra entertaining of late. Kirst is sorting through things, and has an empty tub in the living room. They think that is the best thing ever! Dad even got involved by getting in the tub at one point to play with them. They thought it was awesome!

(I interrupted her nap on accident. It was not well received.)

Work has been work. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Today, today has been entertaining. We have a student that is eager to finish getting his patient contacts in, so it has been entertaining while we debate with him with what volume and type of call is appropriate. He wants large amounts of patients, and massively pain-to-write-the-reports-for style calls. We want nothing but silent radio. So far, he is winning. Although, that was only our third call, so he is not winning by much. 

  Has anyone else with chronic sinus issues and allergies have been having issues with their doctor's offices? I am treated for 1-3 sinus infections a year, and almost constantly have at least low key issues with my sinuses (the allergies pretty much just stay with various points of worsening, such as rain, spring, summer, and fall). They know this. But they panic. When I mentioned the worsening issues since shortly after Thanksgiving, my nurse practitioner almost went the Covid route. Covid is much, much different from this. It is frustrating. And the medicine she gave me greatly helped, but did not quite knock it down back to baseline. So, I messaged her, unfortunately on a day she is off, so other staff members messaged me back. They want me to do a telehealth visit. I'm assuming its because of the "Covid symptoms" of sinus junk. Which is 99% of Missourians' baseline, because our state kinda stinks in that regard. I don't know whether to call and try to sort it out, or if they will try to force me get tested, when I do not need it, and make me miss work and no telling what else until the results come back. It is quite annoying. It definitely is not Covid; myself, and all others that have had it and been symptomatic that I've talked to, state that Covid had its own unique feeling, unlike anything else we have ever had. This- this I have had all the time for years. Oh well, such happenings certainly make sure that life stays interesting.

  I don't really have anything to report on the stitching front. Hopefully I will tomorrow!

  How have all of you been? What are you up to?

  Happy Stitching!

Emmy 

Life

 Hello All! This has quite possibly been one of the busiest Spring Breaks I have ever had! It has been difficult to get caught up on what I need to do, let alone what I want to do. And, of course, the first day of spring break was spent in mandatory training at work. At least until we became too busy with calls. Tomorrow school starts up again. I am not all that thrilled- this break flew by far too fast. 

  The weather has been nuts- one day it was in the 70s, the following day there were tornadoes in the general area of Missouri that I live and work, then the day after that,  there was snow. Our weather can never make up its mind around here!

 Things are progressing slow with my house. A coworker has agreed to frame it, once the foundation is finished. He recommended a guy to finish the foundation (with Dad's work schedule changing, I see no way it will be done by us), but that guy is booked through the end of May- beginning of June. He said he might be able to fit in somewhere in April, but can make no guarantees. Which is a bit of disappointment to me. Not sure if anyone else in the area will be able to do it any earlier or not- it is the season for such things now. 

  Yesterday, Mom, Kirst, and I visited Grandpa and Grandma B, as well as as my Uncle Bob and Aunt Charlotte. It was amazing getting to see them after so long apart. I also managed to sneak some stitching in, but forgot to take a picture. I did, however, remember to take a picture of a pillow my Aunt Charlotte embroidered many years ago. 

  I thought it was quite clever how she embroidered around the white squares to really make it pop!

  The kitties have been entertaining of late. Here is Ladybug helping Mom make her bed:

Someone had to help with laundry here:

Its hard work keeping each other in line!

 Someone had to hold Dad's foot still...

Storm watching:

 Helping me assemble a cabinet for Mom:

Supervising the cabinet assembly:

Signs of Spring!!!!!

Then snow...

  We are now back to things looking more like more spring, but it still cooler than it had been. Hopefully, it will warm back up soon! I hope all of you are doing well. Have a wonderful Sunday!

 Happy Stitching,

 Emmy

Pictures Aplenty

  Just so you are well forewarned, this post is going to be of about a zillion pictures. Life has pretty much just consisted of work, school, and family. Mom had her birthday on Feb 17th, and Dad's is fast approaching on the 10th of this month. Kirst has been doing well. Dad's hours have been changed to third shift, so he has had less than time than ever to do anything besides work or sleep. On the up side, he is actually sleeping more once he gets home- he knows from past experience that third shift is not his friend, so he has been taking a little bit better care of himself. At least there is a bright spot to even the bad things! Mom currently is sick. A stomach bug has been making its rounds around the daycare, and of course she ended up with it. The little ones like to cuddle with her, so she tends to catch whatever they have. 

  School has been going well. I have a final this coming week in Critical Thinking. After that, Spring Break!!!!!!!!!! Which will likely be spent doing lots and lots of projects I haven't had time for yet, but I'm hopeful that stitching will be a large part of that!!!!! If nothing else, maybe I will finally knock out the clutter in my bedroom....  After break ends, nutrition class will continue, and my A&P refresher will start. Hopefully, most of it will come flooding back. If not, A&P intrigues me greatly, so I am optimistic that it will be enjoyable. Especially since there will be no Miss Flufflykins to dissect this go round!

  My house is at a bit of a stand still. The weather did not cooperate for the longest time; now, we have some days that are very sunshiney and spring-like, and other days that are rainy, or vacillate between warm and cold. Hopefully, Dad and I will get the blocks laid soon. If we can find a day where he has the time without being too tired, and the weather cooperates, it should be done. Once that is finished, I am hoping that a coworker's husband will be willing to allow me to hire him to do the framing. As much as I wanted this to be a project for Dad and me, and as much as we would have enjoyed the time together, I just don't see us having the time. My coworker's husband frames buildings for a living, so as long as this project isn't too little or odd, and it fits in my budget, I think it will be best for all involved. Dad and I will still have all of the interior stuff to do, so there will still be plenty of work to do!!! Mom has volunteered to help me hang the paneling, or probably shiplap (Pinterest gave me the idea- it looks so cool!), so that will be fun! 

  My fingers are itching to stitch something spring themed. They've been itching to stitch period for a long, long time now. I don't believe I have anything too springy in my stitching bag, but I just might have something close enough to do the trick, if the good people of our ambulance district allow. Earlier, we went on a lady that we brought to the hospital because she was "tired." That's it, no other complaint, just tired. It was a very accurate call for our EMT student to be on. Although, this type of call usually happens in the wee hours of the morning, but this will suffice since the student would not be here then. Then, since I was a bit tired myself, although I did not see the point in an ambulance and ER bill for it, took a nap myself after lunch! All in all, a pretty good day so far!

  I'm not sure if I've posted this already or not, but Ladybug's front left paw has been incredibly swollen. We don't know if she stepped on something, or if Smokey got too rough while they were wrestling, but something injured it. Ironically, her and I were both on prednisone at the same time. As well as basically the same antibiotic (mine was for a lingering sinus infection/ asthma issues; it was lingering because I did not want to go through the hassle of repeatedly explaining that it was not Covid, just my usual annual, or rather up to 3x annual, sinus infection. Not the best long term decision, but at least I did not have to get tested and waste time off of work for it!). Interesting times in the Swisher Household. 

  Now, without further ado, I present: Pictures Aplenty.

She has been keeping Mom company on the couch; here she is wondering where Mom wandered off to while she dozed. 

                                        

ICECREAM!!!!!!!!

Impromptu naps :)

"Aunt Kirstie spoils me!!!!!" ~ Smokey

Kirst took this gorgeous picture the other day!

This works well, right?

Box!!!!!!!

They're just about the same size now! Ladybug is too polite to wake Smokey up to play, although he has no qualms about waking her up, or anyone else for that matter, when he wants to play. 

"Sup, Mom"

How dare you distract me from bird watching!!!

My current mood as well, little buddy. 

"For the thousandth time, Mom, the Queen does what she wants when she wants. So, no, I do not know why the house being destroyed is my fault."

Trying to look serious for the portrait that will be printed on Her Royal Highness' coins.

Road trip!!!

So much to see! Good thing she travels well, and likes the vet!

Pretty eyes!

Helpin' Marmoo make the bed... and possibly testing it out...

Someone had to help with the laundry...

Can't...go...on...much...longer!

Normal paw vs. Ginormica paw

"Where'd she go?"

New bow tie!!!!

At least they were dirty....

Mandatory meeting: plants are friends, not food.

String!!!!!

A paw!!!!

Someone walking by!!!!

This is how this works, right?

These treats are subpar, Mother, I expect fresh caught fish.

Why can't you fish?

I think they've gotten this whole exercise-bike thing figured out!

Posing for his picture!

   I hope that all of you are doing fantastic, and that spring is headed your way! I hope we all get plenty of stitching in today as well!!!!!! Have a wonderful day!

Happy Stitching,

 Emmy