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I finally finished a pair of Trudgers for one of my dearest sober friends.  They'll go off in the mail today.  They are heavy duty socks -- she will not even begin to think of wearing them until winter.

 The socks get their name from a line in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, "We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny."

 The socks are resting on a felted knitting bag I made about two years ago.  It's carried many projects in the past few years.

 Here's a close-up of the hamsa on the back of Aubrey's jacket.  I'm almost finished filling it in, but there are some other things to be done to it before the hamsa is complete.

 

 The hamsa will bring Aubrey luck and ward off evil.

I had to add the butterfly on the side of the hand because of an accident with felt pens being put in the project bag and leaking on the jacket.

 And, finally, here's a close-up of the gecko.  Aubrey loves lizards.  This is her favorite part of the jacket.  There's a lot of work left to be done on this project, but it will be done in time for Aubrey to wear it this winter.  With all the attention being paid to Mason's arrival, it will be nice for her to get something special.

 

 I've been über busy with work this week.  Many meetings translates into many billable hours, so I guess I should not complain.  If I were just as diligent about writing down my hours as I am about getting to my next needlework project, life would be perfect.  ;)  Any cash flow problems I have are a result of my lackadaisical billing habits.  My sister (who is also my bookkeeper) tries to keep me in line, but I'm incorrigible.

 We are in for much cooler weather for the next few days, thank Buddha!  Four days of 100 degree plus weather makes me cranky.

 I woke up at ugly-thirty this morning (3:30 a.m.) and could not go back to sleep.  I fought it for awhile and then said to myself, "Self, get your ass out of bed and do something.  You can nap later."

 So here I am, boring you.  But I did finish the Trudgers, at last.

I've been working on an embroidered jacket for Aubrey. I'm also still knitting socks for several dear ones who have sobriety dates coming up in the near future. I've been busy with work and trying to finish up some artsy projects. This is good because it has kept me from dwelling on moribund thoughts. My friends whose granddaughter drowned are still on my mind, but they are resting there more lightly. I finished reading The Grace in Dying and cannot speak highly enough for the quality of insight it gave me and the tender compassion with which it was written. I'm now reading One Breath at a Time, Buddhism and the Twelve Steps. Good read for anyone, but particularly those of us who have addictive personalities. On the fun reading front, I finished The Friday Night Knitting Club. Well, not really fun reading, but it was easy reading, especially after the intensity of some of my other reading. The Friday Night Knitting Club is a fairly well-done story of a group of incongruous women who form a bond at a knitting shop in New York City. It's been too hot to hike. In fact, I haven't done much by way of exercise in a long time. Not good. Finding a balance between work, art, exercise, family is very difficult, but then none of you would know anything about that, huh? LOL! If it weren't for that tension, what would we write about?

That whooshing sound you hear as you travel through this blog entry is life sucking.  My daughter shared on her blog about a dear friend's nine month old granddaughter who drowned last weekend.  The memorial service is tomorrow.

 The past several days have been ones of anguish, anger, grief, and pain, mingled with compassion, gratitude, grace, and perspective borne of tragedy.

 Life doesn't really suck, but not one of us would volunteer for such pain.  Trying to make sense of it all is futile when you are dealing with the "shit happens" category of life.

 This was read at one of the Kennedy's funeral.  It might have been read by Bobby at John's funeral or Ted at Bobby's funeral.  I think the former,[1] but it often comes to mind at times like this:

In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. ~Aeschylus

 Still waiting for wisdom and knowing that at the top of the list must come forgiveness for a short period of negligence which resulted in a precious life lost.

Well, I did it again. I got another tattoo. I went to a local event called Tats for a Cure ("Save the Boobies"). It was a tattoo expo that had dozens of tattoo artists from all over the state and even as far away as Colorado raising money for research for a cure for cancer, but focusing heavily on breast cancer. Since that is a cause near and dear to my own heart, I decided to go. My mother died of breast cancer which had metasticized to her bones and one of my best friends is a breast cancer survivor, another good friend died of breast cancer, and then there is Savanah, and many of you who have fought your own battles with cancer. When I got the expo, I knew I was going to end up with a tattoo; I just didn't realize how incredible it would be or how meaningful it would end up being. I didn't tell anyone that I was going to do this because I didn't want anyone to talk me out of it or try to get me to change where on my body I was going to get the tattoo. The new tattoo is much more intricate, refined, and wilder than the first one. I collect Dia de Los Muertos figurines. Here's a brief description of what the Day of the Dead celebration means ~

Mexico celebrates a yearly tradition called Day of the Dead during the lastdays of October and the first days of November. Due to the duration of this festivity and the way people get involved it has been called “The Cult of Death.” As in many Latin American countries, Mexico commemorates the Day of the Dead or All Souls’ Day on November 2nd. The legacy of past civilizations is graphically manifested on this occasion through people’s beliefs that death is a transition from one life to another in different levels where communication exists between the living and the dead. This communication takes place once a year throughout the country. Differing from the Roman Catholic imposed ritual to commemorate All Souls’ Day, which is observed in many countries, the custom established by pre-colonial Mexican civilizations become a ceremony where indigenous beliefs blended with Catholic beliefs. Therefore, the Day of the Dead in Mexico is not a mournful commemoration but a happy and colorful celebration where death takes a lively, friendly expression. Ref: Day of the Dead.

Okay, you ready for this? Here goes ~ Yes, I know. I'm nuts, but I do love this tattoo. I'm going back to this same artist who did my Day of the Dead skull, so he can fix my original tattoo, which I know now was not done skillfully. I will post photos of the new work when it's done in about a month. Please notice the ribbon at the Third Eye position on the tattoo. It is a pink/purple ribbon to commemorate those who have struggled with breast cancer or leukemia. My next tattoo (see, I'm hooked! Maybe I should change my name to Lydia) will have a yellow ribbon in it for all the rest of the people who lives have touched mine and who have battled cancer.