Life art yarn & baby poop

see more pwn and owned pictures

see more pwn and owned pictures

see more pwn and owned pictures

see more pwn and owned pictures

see more pwn and owned pictures

see more pwn and owned pictures

These were made by my grandmother Beatrice many years ago.

And no, not letting my husband sleep on them… they have been carefully packed away

Billy, you’re driving the spork into your leg.

I don’t go to the gym, I’m just naturally like this

For getting Dr. Horrible to a new server… just cause the old one crashed…

I so want to watch Dr. Horrible.

Except for one small problem.

Your website is timing out.

I will go console myself with a Firefly Marathon

Love,

Me

Strange title for a post but it makes sense in a moment.

The supermarket I tend to shop at is a wonderful store. The people who work there are nice, the product selection is good, price is rumored to be higher then at their competitor, but I’m not buying the “gourmet” stuff they sell. There is a cashier there who I’ve always wondered how he came to be living in the United States and working at this store.

I was shopping again last night and realized his line was the shortest (which for this store is a big deal… granted the cashiers are good at not making people wait too long). I hadn’t seen him for awhile so went through his line. Now there is a sign at his register which states “Plastic Bags Only” (not going to get into a discussion about “evil” plastic bags… I recycle them in various ways OK…). It’s not until you actually get to him that you realize who makes him different. He has only 1 arm. From what I’ve been able to figure he is an immigrant from some African nation (name and accent). I’ve wondered how did he lose his arm? Was it because of one of the civil wars/ holocausts happening in his home country? Was it a car accident (worked with a woman who lost her arm in an accident and her fake hand was creepier then if she didn’t wear it at all)? How did he wind up coming to the United States? Coming to Buffalo? Finally working at this store as a cashier. What in his past has he seen that makes him grateful for the opportunities here? When I say the last statement it’s because we’ve all seen the cashiers who are there for the paycheck (and lousy benefits) only and who grunt at you when you dare come through their line.

The kicker? When I go through his lines I help by bagging my groceries (it’s easy enough and hey, I have both my arms and hands and am not scanning the items). He *thanked* me last night for doing it.

Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm: A story with a raffle at the end

I’m just going to cut and quote since Susan (ShepardSusie on Ravelry) writes it so much better (and she’s the one doing the raffle:

My Uncle Jan is married to my mom’s sister Shirley. He is a surgeon and my aunt is a surgical nurse. They worked together for years, had a practice in Radford, VA, and when I was growing up, they lived in a lovely house on the lake. Their house was where we went for huge family Thanksgivings and cookouts. Between them, Shirley and Jan have seven kids and there was always something doing over there.

….

Jan and Shirley are deeply religious and about 15 years ago they started going on medical missions to war zones and third world countries. At first they would go for a couple of weeks at a time, allowing the staff surgeon and nurse to take a vacation. But they fell in love with the work and soon there trips stretched for several months.

Before Jan and Shirley started taking these trips I didn’t realize that medical missionaries are responsible for paying for the majority of their own expense, including travel to and from their posting. It’s mad expensive but they were so dedicated to their work that Jan and Shirley sold their home and moved into much smaller quarters so they could retire and continue to bring medical care to people who wouldn’t otherwise receive it.

Together they have traveled to Sudan, Afghanistan, Nepal and all over Africa. I have heard some of their stories and they are pretty harrowing. The have been caught in the middle of fire fights and bombings on a couple of occasions. I remember hearing that they once did surgery on a man who had stepped on a land mine and walked ten miles holding his intestines in to get to their hospital.

…

He sings in his church choir, ran a Sunday school class, and took it upon himself to trim the dead branches in the trees at his church when he noticed they needed it.

That’s what he was doing last month when he fell 15 feet out of the tree and broke his neck and spine. It took a while for someone to find him laying there and somehow he managed to remain conscious until the ambulance arrived so he could tell the EMTs which vertebrae he had crushed!

My Uncle Jan, Dr. Levy as he is known to his patients, is now partially paralyzed. He has spent the last month at the Shepherd Center, a catastrophic care hospital in Atlanta , where he is receiving rehab and learning how to perform life’s most basic functions all over again. Although he is lucky he has regained a tiny amount of movement in his left hand- lucky to be alive for that matter- he will most likely spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair and his days performing surgery are most definitely behind him.

My Aunt Shirley has been by his side throughout this ordeal and is learning how to care for Jan, how to move him from his wheelchair to the bed without injuring herself, stuff like that.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because this couple that have done so much for so many people are going to need help. As I said, they sold their house years ago and used the profits to fund their medical missionary trips. Luckily they had good medical insurance, but the out-of-pocket expenses will quickly wipe out their retirement savings.

I’d like to try to raise some money to help purchase the wheelchair Jan will need when he returns home to Virginia next month. So I am raffling off my entire stash of yarn (that didn’t come from my sheep and goats) along with some other swell prizes.

Yarn is always good, yarn for a great cause is even better. So click on the link and donate $10.00. Technorati Tags: knit, knitting, crochet, yarn, raffle, good cause,

Barenaked Ladies – Pollywog in a Bog

I love love love this video!

Sock- yarn harlot style

Originally uploaded by swampcrone.

Urkel…. um I mean Byron Brown ran into an office when he saw the tour group. So no trying to get a photo of him holding the sock.

Now if Jimmy was still mayor he would have hung out and said hello to us….