It's A Boy, and an update

Another card from the new Rummage Bin stamp set, Baby Dear. And some good news. My bosses at Cornish Heritage Farms, Liz and Richard Pomeroy, adopted a baby over the weekend! Liz posted pictures and the story of sweet little Caleb here on her blog.

Thank you all so much for reading my story in the last post. Your words are very comforting. We met with the surgeon on Monday and he's leaving on Saturday to do surgeries in Haiti and won't be able to schedule John for 3 weeks, so we've set up another appt with a different surgeon in the same group. He described the procedure, which involves taking out the tumor and section of colon, 5-7 days in the hospital followed by a 4 week recovery. There would not be a bag coming home, and the recovery would mean no heavy lifting or travel. He would not necessarily be laid up the whole time and can do some work at home which we are set up for and he does now. During the surgery they will be able to see if the cancer has spread and if an oncologist/chemo will be needed. So now he has a cat scan today and a meeting with the new surgeon on Monday.

I'm cooking Thanksgiving tomorrow. I cook every year and my mother in law offered to take it this year but I'd rather keep us at home. Usually I spend days browsing recipes deciding what I'll cook, then do my shopping and have to go back 2 more times because I forgot stuff or want to add something. This year I kicked it into high gear - 10 minutes to plan the menu, 20 in the grocery store and I'm good to go! We've been told a low fiber diet will keep John comfortable so I've bought stuff I don't usually buy, like regular white bread, white noodles, and white rice. The grocery store has only a small amount of shelf space for this stuff now. It seems they've really responded to consumer demand for high fiber.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow. Believe it or not I might be Black Friday shopping at 6 am on friday! My daughter has asked for a laptop this year, and the Staples office supply store in the little strip mall close to our house is having some great sales. I'll let you know if this works out!

A Personal Post

No card today, but I have some news to share and it's not good.

My husband, John, has been diagnosed with colon cancer. He had a colonoscopy on thursday which found a walnut sized tumor. The biopsy results came in on friday which showed the tumor to be malignant. We have an appointment on monday with the surgeon and a cat scan scheduled for wednesday so things are moving swiftly to take out the tumor and see if anything has spread. He'd been having some problems (pain, pressure, bleeding) and the GI doctor expected to find Crohns, so this tumor was a surprise even to the doctor. Colon cancer is typically slow developing. Routine screenings are recommended every 10 years. John had a clean colonoscopy in 2006 so we're hopeful that this tumor was caught early.

When I first started blogging in the summer of 2008 I worried at first that I wouldn't have time. It would be fun at first and then the novelty would wear off and it would be a chore. I decided that I would keep my posts brief and pretty much stick to the crafts. This has worked out great and I'm usually exceeding my original goal of 3 posts per week. But over time I've made so many connections with other bloggers that I just feel like this is something I can't not share. So if you're still reading, thank you!

Now there's something else I need to talk about. Something I should have shared months ago. Our little boy, Willie, is autistic. We received this diagnosis in July and he was put in the mild to moderate range on the spectrum. I could go on for pages and pages with his story but I'll try to keep it brief! We were first concerned about him when he turned 1 and wasn't yet talking. I remembered my daughter having some words at 1 and the pediatrician told me not to compare the 2 kids and give it more time. Well at 18 months still no words and there were some other concerns, such as he wasn't stacking blocks and was still mouthing his toys. We got the process started with Early Intervention and scheduled an appointment with a developmental pediatrician from Children's Hospital of Phila, which we had to schedule months ahead of time. We had his hearing tested and that came back normal. By the time we got the appt with the developmental pediatrician we had been working with a speech therapist, occupational therapist, and education therapist for a few months and were starting to see some progress. At that point I had made peace with the diagnosis I knew he was going to receive. Since then we've added a behavior therapist, therapeutic support staff, and mobile therapist. He's also recently started in a 2 year old autistic preschool program that he's doing wonderfully in. The class is limited to 4 with a teacher and an aid. All 4 are boys, all around his age and at about the same functioning level. Willie has always been very attached and dependent on me so this preschool has been a good thing for the both of us.

So I'm trying to stay positive, but geez when it rains it pours!

I took this picture on Halloween. John and our daughter, Mary Rose, went to the World Series.

I stayed home and took Willie trick or treating to a few neighbors houses.

So that's my story. I'll keep updating as things develop with my husband and as for Willie I don't know why I've been so weird about sharing his condition up until now, but I'll update on him as well.

Thanks for letting me share.

Bling Bling!

The Cornish Heritage Farms store has just stocked some tulle ribbon. It's 6" wide, super cheap, and comes in amazing colors. I got ahold of some samples to do a product focus for the sale that starts today. Since I'm an 80's girl you know I went straight for the teal, but this came out so 50's. Trends really do come in cycles!

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday patterned papers; Cornish Heritage Farms Large Polka Dot Backgrounder and sentiment from Sweet Bee set; Cornish Heritage Farms Teal Tulle ribbon; bling from Michaels (Darcee Design).

Everything But The Kitchen Sink Sketch Challenge

I'm happy to get a chance to play along with this super cool new challenge blog, Everything But The Kitchen Sink. I missed their tp and junk mail challenges, but this sketch was too good to pass up.

I altered a tiny composition book that I found at the office supply store. I thought it would be nice to have a little notebook for lists and holiday organizing. Its around this time every year that I start wishing for a new planner, but I have to wait until January. Not this year, this fun little book will tide me over!

The face of the notebook, excluding the binding, measures 3" x 4 1/2" so it was easy to cut the Eskimo Kisses papers into 1" x 1 1/2" pieces and use Mod Podge to seal them to the cover. The center image is from the Calendar Year Scrapblock that Cornish Heritage Farms will release tomorrow.

And here is how I finished the back.

Supplies: CHF Calendar Year Scrapblock; Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black ink; Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses patterned papers; Matte Finish Mod Podge; mini composition book.

Guy Cards

Every so often I go through my card stash to see what I'm short on, and its always guy cards.

Here are a few I made to try to build my stash back up.

For this one I used some rub ons from 7 Gypsies and Making Memories and stamps from CHF's Silhouette Train. Its supposed to read Birthday Time AGAIN?

This one is really simple, and uses a stamp by Sara England that will be released next week. One thing I've found whenever I ask my husband to pick out a birthday card for his dad or brother is that he always gravitates towards the simplest cards. These Sara Englands are a nice size that fill up the face of the card so you don't need much else. I did a little watercoloring with Distress inks and used my new Herringbone Cuttlebug folder, which I think is going to become a favorite.

Supplies: October Afternoon patterned paper and die cut; 7 Gypsies birthday rub on; Making Memories rub on alphas; Cornish Heritage Farms Silhouette Train stamps; Bazzill textured cardstock; Sara England Gone Fishing stamp; CHF Fathers Day Centers sentiment; Fabriano watercolor paper; Staz On Timber Brown; Ranger Distress inks; Cuttlebug Herringbone embossing folder

Baby Dear Release Day

Today is release day for Cornish Heritage Farms Baby Dear and Vintage Baby Expressions.

Lets celebrate with some cupcakes! I thought this would be a fun idea for a shower. To make the stars I traced a chipboard star from Making Memories, then modified the shape a little to better fit the stamps. I didn't do any coloring to the images. They look great with coloring or without.

Here are the full sheets:

Money Tree

I have a tutorial up on the CHF blog today for how to make this money tree.

There is some blog candy as well.

Happy Monday!