Happy to say that I'm Back!!

That was a bad illness.  Day after day after day of nonstop nausea is no fun, let me tell you.  I started feeling better after our trip to the ER where they gave me some medicines to stop it.  They also gave me two liters of fluid IV, which also was helpful.  Unfortunately, being down in bed for such a long time means that my back is messed up now.  It's getting better all the time though, and so I think I can safely say that I'm on the mend. 
I'm going to see a specialist next week.  There is a laparoscopic surgery to take care of this problem, but I am loathe to spending any time in the hospital.  It's probably outpatient.  Still, I don't like subjecting myself to the risk of simply being there hanging out with their antibiotic resistant bacteria strains.  And then there's the risk of anesthesia, medication errors, etc., etc.  I think you know what I mean.  But this is my third episode of this, and so I'm getting close to thinking surgery might be the better option.  But enough about that.

I was finally able to get back to sewing for real today.  I'll post pictures in a few days, but I got all the topstitching done on my machine applique, I made another of the blocks for the Spring Sampler, and today I started on my next Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative quilt.  It too is machine applique.  I have all the pieces fused down and I've made the quilt sandwich.  (You need to remember that AAQI quilts are only 9 x 12, and so it's easy to finish one fairly quickly.)  Tomorrow I'll quilt and bind it and it will be ready to submit.  All in all, a pretty good day.

Thank goodness our deck is almost all finished.  If you've been reading along then you already know that we had to replace our deck.  The deck is built over our family room downstairs (daylight basement).  It's actually the roof of that room downstairs.  So it has a waterproof membrane on it since you can't really put shingles on a deck.  The membrane was supposedly a 30-year membrane.  We've been in the house eight years and it was already leaking. 

It did quite a bit of damage to the ceiling downstairs.  That's actually Mike's fault because he wouldn't believe me when I said there was a leak, even as the damage was obviously growing and changing.  When the paint started slipping down the wall I finally had him convinced.  So he walked upstairs to look at it and found the demon crack in about ten seconds.  (I wish we could have skipped the part where I have to convince him of something.  Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I told him I was having a heart attack.  Actually, that's not fair because he was very sweet to me while I was sick.)

This afternoon I put together the yummiest macaroni and cheese.  I use Ina Garten's recipe and it is so good.  She uses three kinds of cheese.  It makes a lot, and so we have leftovers for another night.  I've never been much of a mac and cheese fan, but this one is really good.  When we take our RV out, I make it ahead of time and put it in single serving dishes (think large ramekins) so that when we arrive at our destination, there's no cooking.  I just pop them in the oven and 30 minutes later, we have dinner.  We're both always very tired on the first day out on a trip.  I think it's the let down after the business getting everything ready to go.  So . . . all of that to say that I'm looking forward to dinner tonight.  Keep in mind that I only was able to start eating again yesterday, and so a comfort food pig fest is sounding very good to me right now.

I'm sure happy with how things are going in the greenhouse.  All my seedlings are up now and I've had to thin some of them.  Even the carrots I planted in a very deep pot (and then promptly forgot about them) are doing well.  It gets very warm in there too, which is good to know because our winters can get very cold.  As long as the sun shines (as it often does after a snow), it'll be warm.  I had it all opened up this morning, and it still got up to 105 degrees.

Okay, I'm off to do something else.  I just wanted to check in and let you know I'm still blogging.  Don't forget the Fall Into Fall Quilting Giveaway that starts tomorrow!  I'll be giving away my usual fat quarter, but I'm adding a pair of my favorite scissors, Galaxy Stitch N' Snip.  Who wouldn't want to win that?  So I hope I see you here tomorrow for two chances to win.  I'll tell you how when you click on the link I've given you in this paragraph.